


Continuing Travels of Cophine, Part 3

by ce_ucumatli



Series: Continuing Travels of Cophine [3]
Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: F/F, Hospitals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-02
Updated: 2019-08-19
Packaged: 2019-09-05 23:02:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 89,325
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16820221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ce_ucumatli/pseuds/ce_ucumatli
Summary: Follows the adventures of Cosima and Delphine as they treat Ledas around the world, and the dramas and shenanigans of Ledas back here at home.Picks up right where Part 2 left off.





	1. Chapter 1

The walk from the airport to Dr. Bronstein's car was silent except for the clicks of their heels on the pavement. When they reached the red Kia hybrid and Dr. Bronstein opened the truck, Cosima spluttered, “Thanks, by the way. I mean, really, thank you. I don't... I don't know what I would've done if –”

“Ms. Niehaus.” Dr. Bronstein held up her right hand hand and took Cosima's suitcase handle in the other hand. “You have thanked me four times already. Once was sufficient.”

Cosima nodded and moved to help her get the suitcase into the truck, but the doctor already had it most of the way there and did not need any help, so Cosima stood out of the way and watched. On the phone the day before, Cosima had imagined Dr. Ada Bronstein as a plump, cheery woman with overlarge teeth, who wore floral print dresses and practical cardigans – the sort of woman who would fit right in on a quaint British mystery series. In reality, the doctor was tall and slim, with short, gravity-defying gray hair and an outfit that might have been cobbled together from clothes she found on the side of the road. She was at least seventy years old by Cosima's guess, and had the wrinkles of a woman who read and laughed often. A bright red cord looped between the arms of her glasses, behind her head. There was no hint of the sort of woman who could sway border patrol agents to let a woman into the country after said agents had decided not to let her in. 

After settling all of Cosima's bags in the trunk or back seat, Dr. Bronstein opened the passenger side door and Cosima slid into the front seat, displacing a few empty cans of Red Bull and a tattered paperback book as she did so. It was almost four o'clock in the morning in Tel Aviv. Cosima was past the point of caring what time it was anywhere else in the world. 

“I expected you're exhausted,” Dr. Bronstein said, fastening her own seatbelt. 

“Yeah,” Cosima said, and restrained herself from saying _thank you_ again. 

They drove out into the early morning darkness, and Cosima would have been fascinated by the differences in Israeli infrastructure compared to other Middle Eastern nations, but at the moment she couldn't find any shits to give. It was all foreign, and it all belonged to a government who would allow Avigail Chernev to die because Cosima had a picture of Yemeni children and a green flag on her cell phone. In the morning, after a full night's sleep and some solid food, Cosima would itch to know what that green flag represented, but she wasn't there yet. 

“I am curious,” Cosima asked Dr. Bronstein, “if you can tell me, what did you do to get them to let me in? The border agents, I mean? They really didn't want to.”

Dr. Bronstein scoffed. “Those weren't border agents, Ms. Niehaus, like you might have in Canada. Those were Shin Bet officers, an arm of national security and rather notorious for their treatment of people they decide they don't like. You are not the first person to experience that sort of treatment, I'm afraid.”

_You could have warned me about that before I fucking landed. Or better, before I got on the damn plane._ Cosima bit her tongue to keep those thoughts inside. “That doesn't answer my question, though.”

“About how I convinced them to release you?” The doctor's laugh was gentle this time. “Let's just say, it pays to have connections. Now, in a few minutes, I will leave you at the hospital's guest house, where I've already reserved a room for you, as I said via email, so you need only sign in at the desk. Someone will help you with your luggage. And then, I'm afraid, I was hoping we could get started first thing in the morning.”

“It is morning,” Cosima remarked.

“I mean 8:00 am.”

Cosima glanced at the clock on the dashboard. “So, like, in four hours.”

“That's correct.”

Clearly, Dr. Bronstein survived on Red Bull and the kind of post-menopausal orneriness that Cosima aspired to, but had yet to reach. Cosima needed sleep, a decent meal, and Delphine's arms wrapped around her in order not to fall apart.

She closed her eyes. That was a thought for another time.

“Perhaps I should have mentioned earlier,” Dr. Bronstein said, “While you were en route, Avigail had another seizure, and she was unresponsive for several hours. She's awake now, but not able to breathe without artificial assistance, and her mental faculties are uncertain. She hasn't spoken to anyone yet.”

Cosima's eyes snapped open. “Oh, shit.”

“Indeed.”

“Um. Well, yeah, I'll be there as soon as I can. Eight sounds fine.”

“It leaves you a few hours of rest to steady your hands, at least.”

* * *

When Cosima's alarm screamed Papa Roach from across the room at 7:00 am, Cosima was more tired than when she'd collapsed on the bed three hours earlier. Her head spun, her stomach churned, and her hands wouldn't stop shaking. She slapped herself in the face and took a cold two-minute shower. _Avigail's in a coma. She'll die if you don't get your ass in gear. Come on._

She was only ten minutes late to Dr. Bronstein's office, where the doctor herself waved aside Cosima's mumbled apology and ushered her back to the staff kitchen, where she made Cosima a cup of black tea before leading her down a busy hallway. 

“I thought we ought to take a look together before meeting our patient later this morning,” Dr. Bronstein said, gesturing to two file folders under her left arm. “And I have some questions for you, as well. I'd hoped to ask them last night, but you didn't seem quite in any position to answer them.”

Cosima smiled in acknowledgment and followed the doctor down the hallway. “Cool, yeah, ask me whatever you want.”

They went to a small conference room with a round table surrounded by four chairs. Cosima sat and sipped at the tea, wondering what Delphine was up to just then. Cosima had texted her a series of emojis on her way to the hospital – a puppy, a tired face, an Israeli flag – but gotten no response yet. They had SIM cards that were supposed to work in all of the countries on their itinerary, but actual tower signal was never guaranteed. If anything terrible happened, though, the security team was also paid to notify next-of-kin, so at least in that respect silence was comforting. No news was good news.

“So, Ms. Niehaus,” Dr. Bronstein began, sitting beside her with the folders between them and snapping Cosima back to the present. “To begin, perhaps you could explain the precise nature of your relationship with Avigail Chernev.”

“Oh, I don't have any relationship with her. We got word that she was sick, and since this condition is so rare, we're always keeping our ears open for people with these specific symptoms, you know.”

“A happy coincidence, then?”

“Sure.”

“Hm.” Dr. Bronstein flipped open the first folder to reveal four high-quality print-outs of social media posts – Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. Each one had a different Leda's picture either in the thumbnail or the main post, and each one mentioned the Sadler and Daughters Foundation in a hashtag. “Were these women's treatments also happy coincidences, then?”

“I, uh...” Cosima spread out the print-outs in front of her. 

There was Erika Maria Santos, whom they'd treated at death's door in Costa Rica. 

There was Christie, the Leda from Texas for whom Delphine had also removed a large mole Christie had wanted gone for years but couldn't afford to take care of. 

There was Anne, the Leda doing aid work in Ethiopia, gushing about the sexy French doctor who “can shoot my ass up whenever she wants!” 

And finally there was Krystal Goderitch, thanking the Foundation for their help in the fight against Big Cosmetics. 

“I found these yesterday,” Dr. Bronstein said, “when I searched for your organization. I suspect there are many more such women who do not post on social media like this. Your partner, Dr. Delphine Cormier, has her photograph on the staff page of your website, so I know that she is not related, but I suspect that as she travels to – Iraq, was it? – she will be treating women who also share this same face. Am I correct in that assumption?”

Cosima needed something way better than tea for this conversation, but she nodded. It was all she could do as Dr. Bronstein opened the second file folder and presented Cosima with a picture of Avigail Chernev.

“And then there's you,” Dr. Bronstein said. “American, pursuing a doctoral degree in genetic research, of all subjects, with the same face as all of your patients. What might you make of these similarities, I wonder?”

She was too tired to lie, or even pretend to be surprised. After all, they had known Dr. Bronstein would react some way or another when she saw Cosima looked the same as Avigail. In hindsight, it had been odd that the doctor had remained so blasé upon meeting Cosima at the airport. “I find them fascinating,” Cosima said. 

“I'm sure you do.”

There was a pause as Cosima wrapped her brain around this new development and Dr. Bronstein watched her. It was like a video game, this whole endeavor. Cosima had beaten one round at the airport, now she needed to beat this one. Unfortunately, she didn't even know what weapons she needed to use, or against whom.

Dr. Bronstein's voice turned gentle, and she rested her hand on Cosima's bag containing Avigail's treatment, which sat on the table. “Your Foundation's website lists _you_ as the primary developer of this treatment. Is that accurate?”

“Um, primary, but not the only one. I had a lot of help.”

The doctor smiled. “Yes, we all must seek help at times, to truly succeed. But tell me, Ms. Niehaus, since you share the same face with all of these women whom you've treated and are treating still, have you also suffered from the same affliction that befalls them?”

Cosima licked her lips and focused on the pictures of the women in front of her. “Yes. I did.”

“So you have personally undergone this treatment?” Dr. Bronstein patted the bag. 

“Yes.”

“Were you the first?”

Cosima nodded. “I was.”

“Impressive. And very brave.”

Cosima shrugged. “Depends who you ask.”

Dr. Bronstein's phone buzzed, and she nodded. “Excellent timing. Avigail is awake and ready for her treatment. I assume that you are, as well?”

“Ready for...?”

“Ready to treat our patient.”

“Oh! Yeah. Yeah, totally ready. Got it right here.” Cosima patted the same bag Dr. Bronstein had been resting her hand on.

“Excellent.” Dr. Bronstein gathered up the print outs and folders, and ushered Cosima out of the room. “By the way, I've arranged for us to have an early lunch – brunch, if you will – after you've finished today's treatment. My treat.” 

“Oh. Great.”

*

“So, um, Dr. Bronstein?” Cosima asked as they made their way through the hospital corridors. “How much, exactly, does Avigail know about all this?”

Dr. Bronstein stopped at an elevator and poked the UP button with a bony finger. “About you and all the others, you mean?”

“Right, yeah. Like, is she expecting this?” Cosima waved her hand over her own face. 

“She is probably not execting your hairstyle, no.” The elevator doors swished open and Dr. Bronstein gave her a wide smile. “After you.”

Cosima stepped to the back of the elevator. “So she does know.”

Dr. Bronstein pushed the button for the fourth floor. “No. I have not informed her of any of these other women. All that she knows about you is your name, your nationality, and the name of your organization. And she knows that you're coming to treat her, of course. I was able to inform her of that before she had her most recent seizure.” 

“Okay.” Alison's voice rang in Cosima's mind. _Just put on a surgical mask and no one will recognize you._ Cosima looked over at Dr. Bronstein, who rocked forward and back on the balls of her feet, smiling at the elevator doors like she had a really good joke that she wasn't allowed to share. Cosima had a thousand more questions for her, but then the doors opened and they stepped out into the hallway. 

“This way,” Dr. Bronstein said.

They went down a long corridor decorated with the usual floral prints as well as some strange papier-mâché sculptures. They passed shuffling patients in rear-fastening gowns, volunteers with service dogs, and custodians waiting for people to pass before sweeping. Visitors carried balloons or flower bouquets, and a man told a little boy in English that “Grandpa will be so happy to see you.” Here and there, large laminated signs printed in Hebrew and English kindly reminded guests that absolutely no leavened bread products should be brought into the hospital during Passover, in about two weeks. Other signs reminded everyone of the importance of proper hand washing and taking their entire regimen of antibiotics. Cosima took it all in while trying not to be left behind by Dr. Bronstein's wide steps. The last time Cosima had been to a hospital, it had been Dyad's hospital wing, a place devoid of this kind of life. 

At Dyad, there had been no other patients in her ward, no art work on the walls, and the only signs were ones posted for the benefit of the staff. There was no gift shop at the Dyad hospital wing, and there sure as hell weren't any therapy dogs. Dyad hadn't expected many visitors for its patients; in fact, it assumed there wouldn't be any visitors at all. 

_But Delphine was there._

Even on Cosima's last stay there, after her uterus ruptured in Shay's bathtub, Delphine had been there, had checked on her, had even provided a 24-hour guest pass for Shay so Cosima wouldn't have to spend the night alone, although Shay hadn't taken advantage of it. She'd left the building already, claiming an early shift the next morning, when the nurse brought the pass down, leaving Cosima alone to think of what it would be like to have someone sit with her through the night.

“Miss Niehaus?” Dr. Bronstein called, snapping Cosima back to reality. “This way.” Dr. Bronstein gestured for her to follow her down a branching corridor, and Cosima shook her head as she made a u-turn and followed her. She really needed more than just tea.

*

Avigail's room was small and crowded with medical equipment, cards, and balloons. The woman herself sat up in her hydraulic medical bed, bald, jaundiced, and covered in tubes and wires. She was looking out the window when Dr. Bronstein knocked, and it took her a few seconds to turn her head. Even when she faced Cosima and Dr. Bronstein, though, she did not make eye contact with them. 

Dr. Bronstein greeted her and said some words in Hebrew that included Cosima's name, and Avigail's face lit up. 

“Ello Doctor Nie'aus,” Avigail said, her voice slightly slurred. “Sorry, my English, em, not very good. Was good, em, better before.” 

“Oh, no worries,” Cosima assured her, stepping closer as Avigail's eyes searched the movement for Cosima's face. “And, uh, I'm not a doctor. You can just call me Cosima, if you like.”

Avigail patted the chair beside her bed, inviting Cosima to sit. As Cosima approached, she saw the sores around Avigail's mouth, and the skin around Avigail's nostrils was worn raw by the nasal-gastric tube and cannula. Still, she smiled. “Cosima. A beautiful name.” 

“Thank you. So's yours.” 

Cosima sat in the visitor's chair Avigail patted, near the pivoting tray table laden with the remains of an unappealing breakfast – a bleached white bagel with a hint of cream cheese and a box of thickened apple juice. Avigail watched her, eyes never focusing, but it was Dr. Bronstein who confirmed Cosima's thoughts.

“Avigail hasn't been able to see very well at all since her last seizure, I'm afraid. As I said, it's good that you're here.”

“Oh.” Cosima looked back into Avigail's eyes, Cosima's eyes, sightless and drooping, and she nodded. “Yeah, it's good to be here.”

*

The treatment went smoothly, Cosima's shaking hand steadied by an ultrasound machine and by imagining she was sticking the needle into herself. 

“Finished?” Avigail asked when Cosima wiped the jelly from Avigail's abdomen with a tissue. 

“Yup, all finished for now. You'll need a follow up shot in about a week, but that one goes in your arm. Dr. Bronstein or a nurse should be able to administer that one.”

Avigail lifted her chin in what might have been a nod, and then twisted as a coughing fit produced a glob of bloody mucus that Dr. Bronstein caught in a plastic water cup and discarded. With a moan, Avigail settled back into her nest of blankets and tubes. Cosima thought she might have fallen asleep, and took care not to snap her gloves when she removed them. As Cosima stepped around the bed and took note of Avigail's overall appearance and symptoms, as well as the vital signs reported on the monitor near her head, Avigail croaked, “Cosima?”

“Yeah?”

“This works?”

“The treatment? Yeah. It's worked on everyone so far.”

“Everyone.”

“That's right.”

Avigail opened her eyes, only to squint and scowl when she still couldn't see anything. “If no work, nothing else, okay?”

Cosima crouched down and leaned close enough for Avigail's eyes to register that she was near. “It's gonna work. You won't feel a hundred percent right away, but it's gonna work. I promise.”

Avigail hummed and closed her eyes again. 

*

“It's not common practice, I don't believe, to make promises to patients,” Dr. Bronstein said on their way out of the room. 

Cosima knew that, but the words had been out of her mouth before her brain could catch up. Despite the hefty cup of black tea the doctor had given her, the weight of exhaustion pressed between Cosima's eyes. She kept forgetting that the symbols printed all over the hospital were part of a real language, rather than decoration, and she kept thinking of where she and Delphine could meet up for lunch. Except she wasn't having lunch with Delphine. She was having brunch with Dr. Bronstein because Delphine was in Iraq by herself. 

At the elevators, it occurred to Cosima that Dr. Bronstein might want a response. “The treatment has a 100% rate of effectiveness,” she told her. 

“For patients in Avigail's condition, as well?”

No clone's condition was ever identical, even if the clones were. Erika Maria and Nooran had been the only other two with such advanced conditions that Cosima and Delphine had worried they might be too late, but even then, as with Avigail, they couldn't know for sure how much deterioration was due to the disease alone, and how much to external factors such as self-medication, malnourishment, or failed medical treatments. 

“For patients in similar conditions, yes,” Cosima said as they boarded the elevator and descended. “It's still effective. Just takes a little longer.”

They ate brunch at a restaurant near the hospital with menus in Hebrew, Arabic, and English. Cosima ordered one of the many vegan dishes on offer and stuck with water for the beverage. At this point, the only thing caffeine could achieve was an increased heart rate, and the amount of sugar she'd had in the doctor's tea probably already gave her three cavities. Dr. Bronstein got a salad and a soda, and regarded Cosima with a thoughtful smile.

“She'll never know, will she?” Cosima asked. “That we look the same.”

Dr. Bronstein shrugged. “That depends on where both of your lives lead you, I believe. I see no reason to describe your appearance or show her a photograph of you after her sight returns, as we believe that it will. Do you see a reason to tell her?”

“No.” 

“How many more of you are there, then?”

She almost gave the exact number, but decided against it. Specificity would lead to more questions, questions she was not excited to answer. “We've cured about a hundred and thirty so far, including Avigail.” Said that way, the number seemed small, still less than half of the total number of Ledas on the list Rachel Duncan gave them last year. 

“Oh!” Dr. Bronstein's eyes widened. “My goodness, that is a lot. And how many have perished from this terrible condition?”

“We're not completely sure, but at least three that we know of. Two of them died before we had a cure,” she hastened to add. “And one died shortly after we developed it, so we just couldn't get to her on time.”

“Terrible. Tragic. How many know each other? You can't be the only one who knows that you have all these doppelgängers around the world.”

“Some of us know. Most don't. It's a lot easier that way.”

Dr. Bronstein nodded, and they ate quietly together while the restaurant filled up around them. Most customers were hospital staff, it seemed, and a few greeted Dr. Bronstein warmly. As they were finishing their meals, Dr. Bronstein wiped her mouth and said, “You're aware, perhaps, that I was not always Ms. Chernev's primary physician. I only took over her care last spring, about a year ago.”

Avigail's page in the Leda notebook had indeed listed a different doctor, one they'd been unable to contact, but all Cosima said was, “Oh?”

“Her previous physician was Dr. Joseph Blachar. He'd been her doctor for ages, and she said that she trusted him. He worshipped at the same synagogue with her parents, though she's not religious herself anymore. She's made that quite clear to me.” Dr. Bronstein smiled to show her approval of that decision. “Regardless, I was a colleague of Dr. Blachar's for a number of years, and I assisted in Avigail's case when she first fell ill. It was clear, however, from the beginning, that Dr. Blachar was keeping information from us. For example, he was in contact with some specialists in Canada, but he never revealed who they were or even which part of Canada they were in.”

“Really?” If an Israeli had contacted them while Cosima worked for Dyad, she would have remembered, and if it happened while Delphine was there, Delphine would have told her. Wouldn't she?

“Indeed. Moreover, as Ms. Chernev's condition worsened and she began using oxygen, Dr. Blachar began to exhibit some rather strange behaviors. Other colleagues and myself became concerned for his health. We went so far as to lobby the administration to have him removed from his post. They said they would consider it.” She paused to put a large forkful of falafel and mixed greens into her mouth, drizzling dressing down her chin and onto her red argyle sweater. Cosima offered her a napkin, which Dr. Bronstein used to wipe her chin but not her sweater. Cosima was willing to bet that Dr. Bronstein's colleagues were used to seeing that sort of thing on her. 

“So,” Cosima asked, “what happened? I mean, obviously he's not there any more.”

“He disappeared. A group of us had planned to stage an intervention of sorts, to have him seek help, perhaps be tested for a disorder – Huntington's, perhaps, or early-onset Alzheimer's – really we were only making guesses, you see, to account for his behavior. But then he vanished. He was schedule to work, and he never arrived. The police went to his house and found it in complete disarray with no one inside. I was at the hospital, in his department, so I took over his patients.”

“Last year, you said?”

“Yes, this time last year, give or take a few weeks. It was shortly before Purim, I remember, because I had to cancel plans to celebrate with my new grandchildren as a result of Dr. Blachar's absence.” She shook her head. “Not this year, though.”

“Hm.” Ages and ages ago, Cosima had celebrated Purim with her grandparents, her mother, and her cousins, but she couldn't remember what the holiday was about. She only knew it happened because her mother had a framed photo of the festivities on her desk at the university. “And you haven't heard anything about or from Dr. Blachar since then?”

“Not a peep. I am now curious if his disappearance, and his behavior, may be related in some way to our patient's mysterious condition. The condition that so many of you share.”

“What makes you think there's a connection?”

She shrugged. “Merely curious, and only just now that I've met you. There seems to be a bit of information that you have not shared, as well.”

Cosima sat back in her chair and spun her fork around on the table. It gave her something neutral to focus on and kept her brain from collapsing in on itself from the combined pressures and lack of sleep. “That's probably true,” she managed. “But it's not malicious. Just easier.”

“Then I shall have to take your word for it. As with everything else that you've told us.” 

Dr. Bronstein paid for their meal and said goodbye, “for now.” She hoped to see Cosima again before too long, she said, and Cosima, willing to say a lot to get out of her presence and back to her room, agreed. 

* * *

She got back to the guest house around noon and was so tired she could barely take her bra off. Once she'd managed that, and her shoes, she crawled under the covers and tried not to cry. 

“Fuckity fuckity fuckity fuck,” she whispered into the pillow. It helped. And then her phone dinged. 

Seeing the little email icon, she swore again and almost turned off her phone, but she took a deep professional breath and opened it. 

_Hello Chérie,_

_I haven't gotten cell phone signal all day, so email is all I can do right now. I don't know why. The signal was fine last night. This evening's Leda postponed her appointment, of course, so I have nothing to do tonight but sit here and miss you. The room is nice, and the security team is everything one would want from a security team._

_And how are you, mon amour? Did you get to Avigail okay? Did they give you the little paper instead of stamping your passport like everyone said? Tell me everything. You can call the hotel and have them transfer you to me; I'm in room 204. I want to try a video chat, so I can see your face and watch your hands move around when you talk, but the internet here isn't very strong, either, so it might be too frustrating. Call me anytime. I miss your voice._

_Je t'aime,_

_Delphine_

Cosima read the email three times. Then she fell back onto the bed and looked over at her passport poking out of her purse where she'd dropped in onto the table. In that passport was a stamp that prevented her from going to Iraq, and Iran, and Syria. In short, it prevented her from being with Delphine while Delphine cured Cosima's distant sisters in some of the least stable and most dangerous places in the world. 

And she could've stopped it. Somehow, she could have stopped them from stamping that damn little book. She could have deleted everything from her phone while she was waiting in line. She could have done something. She should have found a way around it, and she hadn't.

_Hey Babe,_ she typed in response. _Tel Aviv's great, Avigail's been treated, no problem. I'll call you in a few hours, hopefully. I love you._

She hit send, turned her phone off, and rolled over. A few hours. She had a few hours to think of the best way to explain to her fiancée that she'd have to treat a few dozen Ledas all by herself. 

_You weren't helping that much anyway,_ the little voice in her head told her. _She was already doing all the work._

Groaning, she rolled over again and pulled a pillow over her head. It didn't help.

* * * 

“Baghdad is beautiful,” Delphine said, “there's a garden right outside my window, and this morning I went shopping at one of those outdoor markets you like so much.”

Cosima smiled at that. “Not just me. You like them, too.”

“I like them better with you.”

Cosima's smile was interrupted by a yawn. She'd managed to pass out after tossing and turning for thirty minutes, waking an hour later from a dream that she was strapped to a bed and hospital walls were closing in on her. In quiet moments, it still felt like they were. “I like everything better with you,” she said. 

“Mmm. How are you, though?” Delphine asked. “Did you get enough sleep before your appointment this morning?”

Cosima laughed, the sort of laugh that became a persistent giggle and which, if she didn't reign it in soon, would turn into day-long hiccups. She lay her cell phone on her shoulder and took a few deep breaths. When she put the phone back to her ear, Delphine was silent, but a gentle rustle told her Delphine was still listening. “I, uh, didn't get as much as sleep as I wanted to, no. Avigail's treatment went fine, though. She's all set.”

Delphine made a noncommittal sound on the other end. “I'm glad the treatment went well, although you did already tell me that. Twice.”

“Oh.”

“That's okay. You sound very sleepy.”

“Yeah.”

There was a pause, and Cosima heard Delphine licking her lips. Cosima closed her eyes and rested her head on the wall. Delphine knew something was up. She usually did. Cosima took a deep breath and jumped in.

“There was a, um, a little hiccup at the gate, though.” 

“Oh? You got in okay, obviously.”

“I got in, yeah, but it took some time.” She laughed again, humorlessly. “They really didn't want to let me in, though.”

“Why not?”

“I don't know. They didn't like how many other countries I've been to, I guess. And _which_ other countries I've been to, and which ones I plan to going to – ”

“But that shouldn't have been a problem. All travel websites recommend going to Israel last on a tour of the Middle East. The passport control must have seen other people with – ”

“Fucking tell them that, okay?” Cosima shouted. It wouldn't have happened with Delphine. Delphine would have sailed right though, and Cosima would be the one left fumbling with her passport and her oh-so-scandalous pictures of Yemeni children on her phone. 

In the silence that followed her outburst, an apology would have been in order, but Cosima did not give one. If she opened her mouth again, she would have cried. 

Finally, Delphine softly said, “okay,” and “I'm sorry.”

_Shit._ “You didn't do anything.”

“Hm. I should have been listening, instead of telling you... telling you something that wasn't helpful.”

Delphine even did apologies better, even when she had nothing to apologize for. The tear that rolled down Cosima's cheek just pissed her off even more. She practically hit herself wiping it off. “It was hard,” she managed. “That's all.”

“Do you want to tell me about it?”

“I don't feel like doing by a blow by blow, no. Short answer, they didn't want to let me in, but Dr. Bronstein pulled some strings or something – I don't know, don't ask me – and they let me in. And then they stamped my fucking passport.”

There was another pause as Delphine digested each piece of information. “They stamped your passport?”

Cosima wiped away more tears. “Yes. Which means... you know what it fucking means.” 

Delphine swore softly just within range of the receiver. 

“Listen, I'm sorry,” Cosima choked out. “I tried. I tried my fucking best. They just – ”

“Shh, shh, I know you did, chérie, it's not your fault. It's okay.”

“It's not okay!”

“We will make it okay. You got in, you treated your sister, you have an appointment to treat Lonah next week. You're safe, yes?”

“Yeah, I'm safe. Safe as I'll ever be.”

“Good. That's the most important thing.”

Cosima pictured Delphine's face when she was soothing, when she needed to assure Cosima that everything was okay. In person, Delphine would have held her close, kissed her face, cupped her hands around Cosima's head. Even if she fought against it sometimes, Cosima loved it when she did that. More tears rolled down Cosima's face, and she let them, licking them when they ran over her lips. Finally, she said, “I'm sorry I kind of bit your head off there a minute ago.”

Delphine chuckled. “It's okay, chérie. You've bitten me a lot harder than that before.”

It was literally and figuratively true, and Cosima smiled despite herself. “Yeah, I guess I have.”

“It will be okay. It's just a few extra weeks that we can't be together, that's all.”

“That's all.” Shit, they hadn't spent more than a day apart since Neolution fell over a year ago. “It's not like we're just in two different parts of Canada, though.”

“No. You're going back to Canada, though, aren't you?”

“After curing Lonah? Yeah, I guess so. I don't know. To be honest, I haven't even thought about it. I've just... been taking everything a few minutes at a time.”

“That's alright.We can talk more about it later.”

“Yup.”

They sat in the comfortable silence of people who know each other very well. Then Cosima asked, “When you were at Dyad, did you ever hear anything about a Dr. Joseph Blachar?”

“Joseph Blachar?”

There was more rustling on the other end of the phone as Cosima said, “Yeah, Avigail's former doctor.”

“Oh.” The rustling ceased. “I was certain I'd heard that name before, and that would be where. I tried to contact him a few times last year, but no, I never heard anything about him. Why?”

“Dr. Bronstein was talking about him. That's all.”

“Well, you know Dyad was like an amoeba. One department became another department all the time, or they split into three different department.”

“Yeah, and you were in charge.”

Cosima hadn't planned to put an edge on that sentence, didn't even notice it was there, in fact, until Delphine drew a deep breath on the other end of the phone. 

“I was in charge for less than half a year, chérie,” she said. “And they kept me in the dark, too.”

Cosima knew that. Of course Delphine had never known everything; if she had, they would've had the Leda list a _lot_ sooner. “Sorry,” she said. “I guess I'm just being a bitch today.”

“You're tired.”

“Yeah, that's not an excuse.”

“I still love you, though.”

“I love you, too. Call me tomorrow?”

“Count on it.” 

* * *

Cosima had 5 days to kill before Lonah's appointment in Haifa, so she stayed in Tel Aviv, at the hospital guest house generously paid for by Dr. Bronstein. She slept, went on walks through the neighborhood, and ate at interesting restaurants, but she avoided the beach. Delphine was supposed to go the beach with her. They'd looked forward to that, to holding hands on the Promenade after so many months in the Middle Eastern closet, to scuba diving or taking a sail boat tour of the coast. Tel Aviv was supposed to be the last stop on the Middle Eastern leg of their trip, a handy transition point between the Middle East and Europe.

And a thousand kilometers away in Baghdad, Delphine was going insane. She could email and receive calls in her room, but she still had no cell phone service, and the internet was unreliable. Her emails were curt but meaningful.

_Still no service. Went to cell phone shop, no help. Security says it's normal, but people on the street use their phones. I think it's me._

_Love forever,_

_Delphine_

Security. Cosima lingered over that word. They'd paid for the best security company they could find based on all the recommendations they could get. It came from the same pot of money that paid for their flights, their ground transportation, their hotel rooms, their food, and all of their medical supplies. Snorkeling trips, sail boat tours, and souvenirs came from Delphine or Cosima's personal accounts, which had been nicely plumped by Dyad in the past and were now supplemented by other generous members of Clone Club, off the books, even though it wasn't really necessary. 

And there were emails from Alison. Cosima read the most recent one at an outdoor table at a smoothie shop near her guest house.

_Hello Cosima,_

_I was looking over our quarterly budget, and wondering if we really need to spend quite so much on the security teams in all of these countries if only one person will be using them. Of course we still need security, but perhaps we can trim it down a little bit, especially considering the other added expenses incurred on this leg of the trip._

_Let me know what you think._

_Alison_

Cosima didn't respond right away. She was practicing healthy behaviors and giving herself space to feel before reacting. Still, right behind the email tab on her phone was a news tab. Two people were injured in a bomb attack near an open-air shopping area in Baghdad. Delphine hadn't been there. She'd been at her hotel trying to get the printer to work in the complementary office suite, and she'd called Cosima as soon as she heard the news herself, but that didn't untie the knots in Cosima's stomach.

She went on ignoring Alison's email, and focused on her smoothie.

That evening, she typed a simple reply. 

_Dear Alison,_

_No._

* * *

On Thursday she visited Avigail again, coordinating the visit with Dr. Bronstein so she wasn't seen by any members of Avigail's family. Dr. Bronstein reported that Avigail's seizures had ceased, as had the bloody production from her lungs, and her language faculties were back to normal, but a cough remained and her vision had yet to return, leading Avigail to occasionally hit herself upside the head and shake her eyes in their sockets as though that would help. The nurses and her family tried to talk her out of it, but, as Delphine loved to say, she was a Leda, and she did what she wanted.

“Were you blind, also, Cosima?” Avigail asked after welcoming Cosima to her new room in the hospital. 

“No,” Cosima said. “Um, to be honest, you're the first person we've seen with that particular symptom, but Dr. Bronstein and I think it could be a side effect of one of your treatments, the drug you started after your most recent seizure. But, since that treatment has stopped, your vision should come back soon.” Cosima left off the _hopefully_. She had no back up plan in case it didn't.

Avigail nodded. She had a hand-knit wool hat in her hands, and she rubbed the material between her fingers as they spoke. “There are too many side effects,” she said.

“Yeah, I know. Trust me, I know.” The worst side effect Cosima had suffered during her illness had been intestinal problems, brought on by a medication prescribed by none other than Dr. Delphine Cormier, who had known all about the side effects before prescribing. “The doctors just do what they can, though, right?”

“Maybe.”

“Well, hey, your sores are looking way better, though. The rest of the side effects should clear up soon, too.”

Avigail nodded and rubbed her bald head against the wall behind her. “When I can go home?”

“I don't know exactly. Hopefully really soon, though. I think Dr. Bronstein just wants to pull your weight up a little more.”

Avigail made a face. “How do that, when food is shit?”

Chuckling at the sudden mental image of Helena, Cosima nodded. “You know, your English is better than you think it is. Can't they bring you some food from outside? Like, get your mom to bring you a sandwich or something?”

“They say no. Always they say no.”

“Well, maybe I can look into that. See what I can do.”

A nurse came in to take Avigail's vital signs, and did a slight double-take when she saw Cosima. When Cosima couldn't answer the nurse's question in Hebrew, though, Avigail took over, and Cosima watched the numbers come in. Avigail's blood pressure was still worryingly low, along with her heart rate and temperature. When Avigail stood to be weighed, her hospital gown fell open to reveal sores on her backside and the sharp edges of her shoulder blades. Most interesting to Cosima, though, was the small thumb-sized indentation at the top of her gluteal cleft, perhaps the result of a cyst or an issue with her tail bone. 

Cosima shook her head and turned her gaze away. Staring at her clone's ass didn't feel quite narcissistic, but it certainly wasn't appropriate.

“Do you usually stand up to be weighed?” Cosima asked her.

“No. Before yesterday, they weighed me in bed, but now, different room, I must stand.”

“Right. It is good for you to stand up as much as possible, though. Maybe walk around some. Dr. Bronstein says you're able to.”

“You were in hospital?”

“Briefly, yeah.”

“For me, not briefly. Long time. Too long.”

After Avigail sat back down and arranged the blankets around her thin frame, a man's voice boomed from the hallway. Avigail made a face and said what might have been swear words in Hebrew. Then again, a lot of words in Semitic languages sounded like swear words to Cosima. 

“My brother,” Avigail said. “He always stops and talks to the nurses before he comes in. If you have more tasks for today, you will leave now. He never shuts up.”

Cosima's heart rate jumped at the word “brother,” and she didn't stick around to argue with Avigail. With a quick good bye, she ducked out of the door and behind a short stocky man in a yarmulke leaning over the nurse's station, narrowly avoiding an awkward conversation about how similar she looked to his sister.

* * *

Sarah was the first Sestra she told about the whole passport stamp ordeal, when Sarah called to check in the evening after Cosima's second visit to Avigail.

“Holy shit, Cos,” Sarah said. “That's insane. Why were they so pissed off about you wanting to come in?”

“I don't know. It all started when they saw all the stamps from the other countries, and the visa for Iran and Iraq. Which,” she gave a humorless laugh, “I will no longer be visiting.”

“What difference does it make, though? You said everyone hates people who go into Israel and then try to visit them, not the other way around. Or have I got it all ass backwards?”

“The whole fucking thing is ass backwards, no matter how you look at it.” Cosima tipped back in the desk chair and looked out at the darkening neighborhood outside her window.

“Did they say what their problem was?”

“Not in so many words. They searched all my shit, including my hair. I halfway expected them to do a cavity search.”

“Shit,” Sarah said. “So, with that stamp...”

“With that stamp, and I can't go to the next, like, four countries on our itinerary. I mean, I can still go to Turkey, but that's scheduled right in the middle of these other countries, so it'll be weird, and you know how many last minute schedule changes we have.”

“What about Delphine, then?”

Cosima exhaled sharply. “She's on her own now. For a while.”

“Shiiiiit,” Sarah said again, and the heaviness of that reality settled over the sisters. “Fuck, Cos, I'm so sorry.”

Cosima swallowed the angst that came with hearing that specific sentence said in that particular way, and shrugged to fake confidence for herself, at least. “We'll make the best of it, I guess. I talked to her a few hours ago. She's doing okay.”

“A'right. She's still got security, though, right? That whole security team thing you talked about the other day in the car?”

“Yeah, yeah. She said they've been fine so far.”

“Well,” Sarah said, “you don't really know how good security is when things are going well, do you? They're like janitors that way.”

Sarah's turn of phrase made Cosima smile. “Yeah, I guess so. If they do their job right you never know they're there.”

Sarah made some noises of agreement, then blew out a large breath. “I'm sorry, Cos. If I'd known this was gonna happen, I would've found a way to go there for you. I just... I figured there would've been someone else who would've been better, figured anybody had to be better than me, and... shit.”

Cosima's throat constricted. She hadn't given much thought yet to the role her family members had played in this little drama, focusing instead on her own incompetence and the unreasonable bullshit of the nations and organizations involved. Now that Sarah had said it, though, everyone's voices from the other day rushed into her head, telling her to separate from Delphine, to go alone into Israel, that they didn't have to stick together all the time, that it was a waste of resources for them not to split up in cases like this. Tears pushed out from under her eyelids and burned their way down her cheeks. “It wasn't just you,” she managed to tell Sarah. “But thanks, all the same.”

* * *

On Saturday, Cosima's last day in Tel Aviv, most of the city closed down for the Sabbath, leaving the tourists and the nonreligious to pick through the occasional restaurants that stayed open. Cosima was both surprised and not to find that the one open restaurant in her neighborhood also served pork, proudly advertised in the window as “Tel Aviv's Second Favorite White Meat!” which seemed like a bit of a stretch. She took a picture of it to send her Jewish grandmother later, and ordered a plate of pork ribs just for the novelty of it. Only after she'd taken a bite did she remember that it didn't really matter. She didn't need to savor this while she could; she was going back to Toronto in less than a week, where she could eat all the pork she wanted. 

Her phone dinged. _Tea this afternoon, Ms Niehaus?_ asked Dr. Bronstein. 

Cosima sighed. She'd thought her relationship with the doctor could now fit nicely into the category of occasional emails updating her on Avigail's health, but apparently not. _Sure_ she replied. 

Dr. Bronstein's house was a cluttered as her outfits, every surface piled with papers, books, and assorted Oxford University paraphernalia. “I'm teaching a course,” the doctor explained as she made a space for Cosima to sit at the kitchen table, “on hereditary autoimmune disorders. It's for the community, not for scientists or medical students, so I need to spend extra time planning out what I'm going to say. To make it accessible, you know.” She gave Cosima another wide smile. 

“Cool,” Cosima said. “Is there, um, a big demand for that? In the community, I mean?”

“There is some.” Dr. Bronstein put the kettle on the stovetop and opened a tin of Danish butter cookies, which she set on an Oxford University tablecloth. “I'm sure you're aware that there are a number of genetic disorders passed down through families of Eastern European Jewish ancestry. Ghettos, you know. Lack of genetic diversity. It's changing now, though. The genetic pools are being stirred up a bit, to the benefit of everyone.”

Cosima nodded. In her high school genetics class, it had been a game among the students to guess whether the new disorder being presented would be related to Eastern European Jews, the Amish, or a tiny isolated community in the Andes or something. It was a lot less amusing to consider now. _Just imagine,_ she thought, _if Leda and Castor had been designed to be fertile._

Dr. Bronstein dropped a few heaping teaspoons of sugar into her tea, giving Cosima a contact sugar high strong enough that she left her own tea unsweetened. “So,” the doctor said, “here's to success.”

They klinked their Oxford University mugs together and drank.

“So, all of those women,” Dr. Bronstein said, leaning back with her mug in both hands resting against her chest. “ _These_ women, rather, including yourself. I still have questions.”

Cosima didn't respond. She sipped the tea and watched Dr. Bronstein watching her. 

“How did you first discover that you were, ehm, identical to so many others?”

“One of them contacted me.”

“I see. And how did she find you?”

“She used facial recognition software.”

“I see,” Dr. Bronstein said again. “Clever of her. Are you still in contact with this woman?”

Cosima tried to remember what Beth's last words to her had been, and failed. Each time she thought she remembered, she heard Sarah's voice, using Beth's accent, telling her she got the briefcase, telling her that the German was dead and asking how to get rid of the body. “No,” she told Dr. Bronstein.

“It would get complicated, I expect,” Dr. Bronstein said. “I can only imagine if another person who looked like me went around. I think she would annoy me.” And she laughed, but Cosima didn't. Cosima was still trying to remember Beth, and remembering her confusing voicemails, her paranoia, her secrets.

“She might annoy you,” Cosima said. “It's just like having sisters, though. Sometimes we're similar, sometimes we're different. Avigail and I are totally different people, for example.”

“And you treat all of them yourself? You go around treating them for this disease? That must be complicated. How many recognize themselves in your face?”

“My partner's usually the one who does the actual treating.”

“That would seem more practical.”

Silence descended again, broken only by the ticking of a grandfather clock in the corner. Delphine was en route to Basra as they spoke, traveling with their security team over Iraq's highway system. Her freckles would be coming back now with all this time in the sun, and she would keep her hair back and covered to avoid excessive attention. She probably had her sunglasses on right now.

“I can't help but wonder,” Dr. Bronstein went on, pulling Cosima's thoughts back, “about the cause of your similarities with these other women. Not only are you similar, it seems, but identical, despite your geographic diversity. You must have investigated it yourself, with your educational background.”

Cosima considered. She could say the truth, the whole truth, and go deep down the rabbit hole of Neolution, Dyad, monitors, Project Castor, planned infertility, and robot maggots in people's faces. Dr. Bronstein would doubtless be fascinated, and Dr. Bronstein had, after all, facilitated the entirety of Cosima's stay in Israel. 

But she would probe. She'd ask and ask until Cosima had her own genetic blueprint pulled up on a computer and Dr. Bronstein was calling Delphine for her memories of Dyad and – 

“We're not actually identical,” Cosima said. “I mean, yeah, in some ways we are, but we're actually more different than we're similar.”

“But you're physically similar.”

“Well, yeah, obviously. We all have this disease, or will have it at some point without a vaccine.”

“And the same face.”

Cosima made an expression she hoped translated as _“so what.”_

“Have you run any genetic analysis on yourself and your, ehm, _sisters_?”

“I have.”

“And?”

“We have some genes in common. No surprise there. But – ” She leaned forward, and Dr. Bronstein did the same. “We're all different. Just like all the people of Eastern European Jewish ancestry are different. Yeah?”

Dr. Bronstein rested her chin on her hand and regarded Cosima with watery eyes. “That's as much as you're going to tell me, isn't it?”

Cosima smiled. “Pretty much, yeah.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter overlaps a little bit with the previous one.

Delphine stood by the window of her hotel room in Baghdad, listening to the sirens going by and tapping her fingers against her collarbones and cycling through the events of the last two days in her head, over and over and over again. 

They'd seen Avigail's Facebook post twenty minutes before leaving for Istanbul - five hours after Avigail herself posted it, but twelve hours after Delphine normally would have checked. Delphine usually checked the clones' social media during or just after breakfast, depending on the daily schedule, but of course, she'd been too out of it that morning. Too busy, as Cosima put it, remembering that pool noodles weren't sentient, so she didn't see the status until they were in the airport.

If Delphine had checked earlier, they would have had more time to help Avigail. With more time, they might have found a better solution, a solution that didn’t involve Cosima going off to Israel on her own and now being unable to rejoin Delphine.

Physically in Baghdad but mentally all over the place, Delphine pushed a hand through her hair and groaned. That little alternate reality fantasy was all well and good, except that it was, itself, faulty. If she had checked Facebook at her regular time, they wouldn’t have seen Avigail’s post at all until the following day, after arriving in Iraq. If Delphine had checked Facebook at her regular time, they would have had even less time to help Avigail than they had actually had.

She rubbed her face, gently tugging on the skin below her eyes. There was no point in this. No matter how she looked at it, the reality was that Cosima was in Israel, with an Israeli stamp in her passport, and she would not be joining Delphine for quite some time.

“Putain,” she muttered.

It didn't help that Delphine had spent most of her day in this hotel room. The Leda living in Baghdad postponed their appointment until tomorrow, giving Delphine very little to do. There was only so much shopping she was willing or able to do here, and her personal security guards made her more self-conscious than she'd anticipated. She always saw them, like her own private secret service, keeping an eye on the surroundings. They didn't want her out shopping at all, since markets were prime targets for bombings, particularly of the car and suicide varieties. However, she'd needed to go to the cell phone shop that morning, and the market was on the way back, so she'd gone in and bought some food to take up to her room. She hadn't spent enough time there to bother with the customary haggling, and probably spent far too much, but when one of the guards scolded her, it wasn't about the price.

“That was a bad idea,” he said as he escorted her up to her room. “I would advise you to follow our instructions more closely next time.”

“I was there for five minutes,” she told him. “I won't go again.”

“That would be best. If you are hungry, you can eat at the hotel's restaurant, or food can be delivered to your room.”

The security team, consisting of a rotating squad of guards and interpreters, prided itself on safely escorting precious cargo and coalition VIPs all around Iraq. They seemed a bit baffled by Delphine, though – a single French woman on a humanitarian mission with a foundation none of them had ever heard of. More than once, members of the team suggested that Delphine's smartest move would be to leave Iraq and return if and when the situation calmed down. She didn't respond to those suggestions.

Now, pacing back and forth across her room while the traffic played its music outside, she had a fleeting thought that maybe it was best Cosima wasn't here. Cosima didn't take orders well, and as much as Delphine loved Cosima's sassy nature, the personal security team were not sass-loving people. 

With another groan, she shook her head and made herself a cup of herbal tea. Last night she'd slept like a log, her body and mind exhausted after the flights and the various dramas involving Avigail’s care, but she was not remotely tired now. If Cosima were there, they could think of something to do together, possibly but not necessarily sexual. Cosima's creativity extended just as well into activities one could perform clothed. Still, they usually ended up naked or halfway naked.

“I could count the freckles on your back,” Cosima once suggested, when they were stuck in a different hotel room for a day. “Or connect the dots and see what kind of treasure I find.” Then she kissed Delphine between the shoulder blades and trailed one finger down her spine.

Not tonight, though. Nor tomorrow night, or any night this week or probably next week, either, for that matter.

Delphine sat on the edge of the large, empty bed and typed _I miss you_ into her phone's messenger. The message went into the queue of “failed to send” messages, and she tossed the useless phone back onto the desk. On her laptop, her email dinged, showing a message from the local Leda clone with an updated time and location for tomorrow's appointment. Delphine sent a quick reply and hoped it was serious this time, and wouldn't get postponed again. This entire trip was already taking too damn long as it was.

* * *

In every other country they'd been to, they took public transportation wherever they went, with very few short-distance exceptions. In Iraq, they had personal drivers. Or rather, Delphine had drivers. 

Adjusting the mental pronouns from plural to singular was an entirely unwelcome new task.

Her driver for the two-hour trip to Najaf, a city south of Baghdad, was Carlisle, a rectangular tank of a man who was based in the Baghdad office and who held doors open for her with a flourish. Cosima would have balked at this showy sort of chivalry, but, for better or for worse, Delphine was used to this kind of service. She'd gotten it as the head of Dyad, and she'd gotten it with Jérôme and everywhere he'd taken her. She was accustomed to people being there, waiting for her when she arrived somewhere. That didn't mean she liked it. 

“What happened to your partner, by the way?” Carlisle asked as he held the door open for her. “The paperwork says there's supposed to be two of you.”

She settled into the back seat, her medical bag beside her. There should have been two of them. Cosima should have been sitting in the seat right beside her. To Carlisle, all she said was, “Something came up. She may be joining me later.”

As they drove out of the Baghdad city limits and into the Iraqi desert, Delphine distracted herself by checking email on her phone, which had finally achieved semi-reliable signal and data capabilities yesterday. 

The Lisbon clone emailed to confirm a meeting with Delphine in a few months. _Fantastic._ She made a note of it in the appropriate notebook and moved on.

Her hotel in Najaf reminded her that she could check-in online. _Delete._

The bank reminded her that her monthly statement was ready. _Delete._

Then there was an email from Alison, asking Delphine for a detailed update about the security arrangements, which Delphine was happy to provide, including everything from the daily procedures and policies to the best information she had about the make and model of their firearms and the vehicle they drove her around in. It was interesting getting emails directly from Alison, who usually just went through Cosima. The email was direct and professional, closing with “Best regards, Alison.” 

In her response, Delphine purposefully left out any mention of the recent bombing at the market in Baghdad, which Delphine hadn't even been present for. Alison hadn't asked about it, for starters, but Delphine suspected that the sisters knew or would know about it soon. She just didn't want to talk to any of them about it. Hearing Cosima's panicked voice on the other end of the phone that day was enough, and knowing that, regardless of whatever the guards told her, Cosima probably would have been out and about when that bombing happened.

In the comfortable air conditioned Suburban, Delphine dropped her phone into her lap and looked again at the empty seat beside her. 

_It's better that you're in Israel, mon amour,_ she thought. She would much rather miss Cosima for a few weeks than risk missing her for the rest of her life.

*

The hotel in Najaf had high powered internet, so Delphine asked Cosima if she wanted to finally try video chatting, which never would have worked in her hotel in Baghdad.

_YES!_ Cosima texted back. _Hit me up whenever you're ready. I'll be in the room for the rest of the day._

But first, Delphine needed to download Skype onto her laptop. It seemed strange, since they'd Skyped so many times with Charlotte, Sarah, and Alison over the past several months, to realize it had never been from Delphine's computer, but always from Cosima's. Delphine set up her account and created a Skype name (Eskimo Pie, predictably), and blushed a little when she typed Cosima's information into the contacts section. Then she clicked the dial button and waited like a girl calling her crush for the first time.

The screen popped open to reveal a slightly disheveled Cosima. “Hey!” she said. “You got it to work! I like your Skype name.”

Delphine blew her a kiss. “I haven’t seen any here yet.”

She and Cosima sat there for a moment grinning at each other across cyberspace and over a thousand kilometers of desert. They hadn't seen each other in four days – the longest time apart they'd had since Neolution collapsed. Delphine took in every detail of Cosima's face, hair, outfit. Cosima wore her form-fitting red shirt with the scooped neckline, and her dreads were loose around her head. When she rose slightly to adjust something, Delphine saw that she wasn't wearing a bra. Delphine licked her lips and closed her eyes for a moment. In person she might have reached over and cupped Cosima's breasts in her palms, but now...

“This is so weird,” Cosima finally said, her voice slightly warped by the internet. “I have never Skyped with you before. This is a new step in our relationship.”

“It is. I would much rather just be in the same room as you, though.”

“Yeah, ditto. Obvs.” 

“And how are you, mon amour? Staying out of trouble?”

Cosima made a face and huffed. “Yeah yeah. You know me.”

The following conversation was the usual catching up, except it wasn't usual at all. They didn't usually spend enough time apart to warrant catching up. Cosima did most of the talking, detailing all the little points of interest that she normally would have shared with Delphine in person. Cosima was spending most of her time outside of her room and in the city, in contrast to Delphine's current hotel-bound lifestyle, and she seemed to like Tel Aviv quite a bit. She was eating good food, getting a lot of sun, and exercising more than usual. She'd also gotten the Hebrew copy of Harry Potter to add to her collection.

“It'd be way better if you were here, though,” Cosima repeated a few times.

Delphine smiled at her and hugged her knee to her chest. “Trust me, I wish I were there with you. It's not the same when you're not around.”

“How are things?” Cosima asked, frowning suddenly. “Over there, I mean. I keep checking the news from Iraq, and -- ”

“Everything is fine here,” Delphine assured her. She could have pointed out how similar Cosima’s comment was to those they heard from Cosima’s family before leaving Toronto, but she let it go. “Najaf is a beautiful city, and everyone is telling me how safe it is, which feels like a curse of some kind, but I do believe it.”

“Yeah, I haven’t seen anything weird or scary from Najaf. I mean, the way I see it, when the top three news stories about a city are all about book shops and poets, it's probably a decent place to be.”

“Mmmhm.” Her escort had driven her past some bookshops on the way to the hotel, outdoor menageries of literature spilling into the sidewalks. “You'd like it here,” she told Cosima.

“Probably.” Cosima fidgeted with a pen, her lips pursed. It was the same look she gave Delphine when Delphine was sick and pretending not to be.

Delphine sighed and smiled at her. “I’m fine, chérie. I promise.”

Cosima forced a smile. “Yeah, I know. I just… I wish I was there with you. That’s all. I’d be less worried if I saw things for myself.”

Delphine giggled. “You would be giving the security team a hard time, actually.”

Cosima laughed, too. “Yeah, I probably would.” She shook her head, the brief amusement on her face replaced by more concern. “Oh, and, complete change of topic, but I saw Avigail again this afternoon. She's still blind, which is kinda weird.”

Delphine agreed that it was strange. No other Leda had gone blind during the course of their illness or the treatment of it, as far as Delphine knew, but each woman's treatment was different. “Do they think it's seizure-related?”

“That, or related to something they might've given her to try and stop the seizures. Nobody fucking knows.”

“Mm,” Delphine agreed. Even the two of them, the experts on the Leda sickness and its treatment, could only guess at certain aspects of it. Adding in extraneous treatments just muddled everything further, as each patient then became the only one to go through certain aspects.

Cosima's eyebrows bunched up and she pressed a knuckle against her lips. “I told her her vision should come back soon.”

Delphine nodded. “That sounds reasonable.”

“Yeah, but what if it doesn't?”

“It might not come back,” Delphine acknowledged. “But it sounds like you didn't make her any promises in that regard. You just said that it _should_ , not that it necessarily _would_.”

“Yeah. I did promise her that the cure would work, though.”

“It always has so far.”

“So far, yeah.” Cosima scratched her scalp between her dreadlocks. “I'd be way more worried about making those kinds of promises if we weren't all clones. Like, it makes me kind of anxious anyways, because there's all kinds of other factors that influence a treatment's success.”

“Yes.” Delphine leaned back in the large office chair, the kind of chair she sat in as head of Dyad. This chair, though, towered over a much more modest desk in a small hotel room. She'd heard this spiel from Cosima before, a few times, and she said what she usually did. “We would have heard by now if it didn't work for someone.”

Cosima sank slightly into herself. “Yeah. I'm still trying to figure out why we all get sick at different times, too. Like, how come I got sick before Alison or Beth? Why did Katja get sick before I did? Why do some of us hang on with this disease for ages, while others go down hill so fast?”

“I don't know, chérie. Dyad was looking into it, you know, but – ”

“But Dyad was also willing to keep people in the dark about it, and do all sorts of other shitty things.”

“Yes.”

Cosima chewed on the cuticles of her left thumb. “I wonder what happened to that doctor, the one Dr. Bronstein told me about. She said he just sort of vanished.”

“Probably the same thing that happened to so many other Neolutionists.”

“They killed him?”

“I assume so.”

Cosima tapped on her lips some more with her index finger. “It's all weird shit. I have so many fucking questions.”

“And a lot of time on your hands,” Delphine remarked with a smile. She knew what Cosima was like when she got bored. When Cosima was bored, interesting things had a tendency to happen. Not necessarily useful things, but interesting ones.

Eventually, they both ran out of interesting things to say, and it got harder for Delphine to hide her yawns, but she stayed on the line, insisting she wasn't tired.

“Bullshit,” Cosima chided. “You've got all the little tired lines on your face, and you're holding your head the way you always do when you're sleepy.”

She smiled and blushed. “I didn't know I held my head any particular way when I'm sleepy.”

“You totally do.” Cosima gave her one of those tongue-between-the-teeth smiles. “I love seeing you in all these different ways, and places, and situations. I see you when you're tired, when you're asleep, when you just woke up, when you're cranky, when you're sick...”

The list made Delphine laugh. “Okay, now you sound like Père Noël. Are you also making a list of how good I am all year?”

“Don't need to make a list,” Cosima said, leaning forward towards the camera. “And besides, sometimes it's even better when you're naughty.”

“Mmmm...” Delphine could stop smiling. Cosima had that little glint in her eyes and that pointy-toothed smile and Delphine could just feel those teeth on the side of her neck, while Cosima slid her hands up her shirt and –

The chair squeaked when she shifted, and her lower back complained from sitting around so much lately. She yawned again, completely against her will and completely spoiling the mood. “I'm afraid I have no one to be naughty with right now, though,” she said.

“Yeah, same here,” Cosima said. “It sucks.”

“You know,” Delphine said, channeling her naughtiness in the only way she could, “I have heard that Israeli women, and men, for that matter, are some of the most beautiful in the world. It's a pity I'm not there to enjoy them with you.”

The expression on Cosima's face was totally worth it, with both eyebrows as high as they would go and her head pulled back. “Dr. Cormier? Are you suggesting... what I think you're suggesting?”

“Merely expressing regret that I'm not there to enjoy the sights with you. That's all.”

“Well.” Cosima adjusted her glasses and pursed her lips, then rolled her shoulders. It was a classic Cosima Niehaus stalling move, and Delphine liked it every time. “I'm not gonna lie,” Cosima said, “there are a lot of very attractive women here, even if I have not come across Gal Gadot just yet. However! However, however, the fact of the matter is that the only sight I want to be seeing right now is you. With or without your clothes on.”

“Soon, my love. Don't worry.”

* * *

Delphine spent four nights in Najaf, two of which were spent trying to find the local Leda and convince her to get an injection, escorted the entire time by her armed escorts. She talked and texted with Cosima a lot, sending her pictures of everything she wasn't worried about photographing. Cosima was going stir crazy in her room in Tel Aviv, so she was often outside when they Skyped, little headphone cords dangling from her ears and a breeze fluttering her shirt and hair. She looked, for all intents and purposes, like a woman on vacation. Meanwhile, Delphine still spent most of her time indoors.

“So, I looked at getting a new passport,” Cosima said one day.

“Oh?”

“It looks like it should be pretty easy, but, of course, we've said that before about other things.”

“We have,” Delphine acknowledged. “Will they let you get a new one so quickly? Yours is less than five years old, isn't it?”

“Yeah, it's not too old. I got it renewed right after Beth contacted me, so I could go back and forth to Canada. But I didn't see any time limits on the government website, so...” She held up a hand in a hopeful gesture. “It's just gonna take some time, which sucks, but we kinda figured that. At least this way maybe I can come and see you before the end of fucking May.”

“That would be nice.” Delphine leaned back in the hotel room armchair. She wanted to sit outside, in the warm shady breeze under the hotel's awning, but her guard cautioned her against it. They'd almost gotten into an argument about it that morning, with her reminding him that he'd said it was a safe city, and him saying that _safer_ didn't equal _safe_ , and that they'd heard rumors of IS activity nearby. So she stayed inside. 

“Also,” Cosima went on, “I'm thinking of going back to Minnesota instead of straight back to Toronto after I'm done in Haifa. I can meet with my advisor and do the passport stuff all in one trip. I figure it'll be easier from the States.”

Delphine nodded. “Your advisor's been wanting you to come back more often. She'll be happy to see you.”

“Yeah...” Cosima laughed. “She'll remind me that I'm behind schedule, too.”

“Probably. It's part of her job to keep you on schedule.”

They settled into silence, and Cosima was briefly distracted by something off screen, giving Delphine a nice view of her neck when she turned. She missed nuzzling that neck first thing in the morning, lying in bed with her, or at the bathroom sink while Cosima brushed her teeth.

“What are you going to do,” she asked when Cosima's attention returned, “when you get to Haifa tomorrow? How are you going to treat Lonah?”

Cosima gave a little huff of laughter. “That is a damn good question, and I have not figured out a good answer. Actually, the best answer I have is to just stick with our original plan, and have you treat her.”

Delphine ran the idea around in her head. A second trip to Israel, in several weeks, after Cosima had such difficulty entering the first time. “You think they would let me in? My passport is quite similar to yours.”

“Yeah, I don't know. Like I said, it's the best answer I have.” She shook her head. “I do feel like they're more likely to let you in than me, though. Just a hunch.”

“Why is that?”

“I dunno, because you're hot?”

It was the most ridiculous thing she'd heard all day, and Delphine burst out laughing. “What makes you say that?”

“What makes me say that you're hot? Seriously? Okay, let me list things for you. You're tall, you have killer hips, great legs, big beautiful eyes, and an ass that – ”

“Okay, okay, yes, thank you.” Delphine held up a hand, blushing. “Not that I don't appreciate it, but you misunderstood my question. Why do you think border agents would let me in? Why do you think it matters how I look?”

Cosima sat back and regarded her with a strange expression. “Because I've seen them do it before. I've seen them treat you differently.”

“Seriously?”

“Seriously. All the time. Most recently when we left Toronto.”

“What? I don't remember anything like that, and before you say anything, I was completely sober by the time we got to the airport and you know it. You said so yourself.”

Cosima laughed gently and bit the tip of her thumb. “Yes, you were completely sober, I agree. Hm. It was subtle, kind of. There was nothing unprofessional or whatever, but the security guy, the tall red-headed one, he was _super duper_ friendly with you, and then his face fell like the fucking Berlin Wall when you stepped away and it was my turn to get body scanned. You could just tell he was hoping he'd have some reason to, like, pat you down or take you off to a private examination room or something.”

“I don't remember anything remotely like that.”

“Probably 'cause you get that treatment all the time. I, however, do not. I get the “we need to pat down all of your dreads” treatment. Not that I'm bitter.”

“Of course not.” Delphine thought back to that encounter, so totally unremarkable in her memory. She'd been through countless security screenings at countless airports, usually a few steps ahead of Cosima just out of habit, or because her legs were longer. She was familiar with the distrust some agents had regarding Cosima's hair, especially when Cosima wore her hair piled up in a bun, but otherwise she'd never noticed a difference in treatment. “I think you're imagining things, chérie,” she said.

“I am not. But, I'm also not interested in arguing about it. I do know for a fact, though, that once I leave this country, the Israeli government is never, ever, going to let my ass back in again. New passport or not.”

Delphine agreed. “And Lonah's not showing any symptoms?”

“None that I'm aware of, no.”

Delphine blew out a long breath. She could go to Israel as planned in May, leaving Cosima behind in Europe or North America, but they'd already changed Lonah's appointment to have her treated in a few days. It had seemed like a good idea at the time, while they were scrambling and juggling various concerns from the Istanbul airport last week, and the more Delphine thought about it, the more she liked it. If Cosima treated Lonah while Delphine was in Iraq, that saved them a few days overall – a few days which they would otherwise have to spend away from each other. Their current separation stretched out long enough without adding a few more days to the end of it.

Cosima laughed again, breaking the brief silence. “You know what we really need to invest in? Fucking dart guns. Just spot the target out and about, shopping or whatever, and – ” she held a hand to her mouth to form a tube, “ – Fwup! Instant inoculation. It's fool proof.”

Delphine giggled, too. “Aren't you outside right now? People can probably overhear this conversation from your end, and I expect they're quite curious now.”

Cosima looked around. “Nah, it's okay. Everyone else has headphones in, too. And if they can hear me, maybe they can use that as the great opening line for their novel or whatever. Dart gun inoculation. I'm telling you, that's where we need to be taking this. I bet Helena could help us out a lot with that, too.”

*

Cosima brought up the dart gun idea again the next day, when she called to say she'd arrived safely in Haifa.

“I've seen Lonah already,” Cosima said, just after greeting Delphine. “Which, like, never happens, but she was at this restaurant with, like, a table full of kids. I was lucky I got away before she saw me. That dart gun would've come in really super handy, though.”

Delphine was at the clinic in Najaf, between actual clinic patients and waiting for the local Leda to arrive. She leaned against the exam table, cell phone to her ear, and smiled. “You would have shot her with a dart gun in a restaurant surrounded by children?”

“To avoid the awkwardness of her seeing my face tomorrow? You bet your hot ass I would have.”

The nurse came and knocked on the door to announce the next patient, so Delphine let her go, sending all the love she could over a cell phone call. Hearing Cosima say “I love you, too” always made her heart melt, but the distance made it extra sweet, and Delphine was still smiling like an idiot when the next patient entered.

* * *

She had a different driver on the way to Basra on Monday, a man named Rick Weiland, who insisted that she call him Rick. Like Carlisle, Rick was American, a retired Marine Corps NCO, and he talked to Delphine almost the entire five-hour drive down.

“Basra's kind of a shit hole,” Rick said as soon as they left Najaf's perimeter. “Pardon my French, of course.” He flashed his teeth in the rearview mirror at her, and she responded with silence. If she had a dollar for every time an English speaker said “Pardon my French” to her, she could retire by forty-five. Normally, that phrase would have been her cue to put on headphones, but for safety reasons she'd been strictly advised against that.

Her silence did little to deter him. “It's not the worst place you could go, mind you,” he went on. “Up north's actually way worse. ISIS everywhere you look. If you don't mind me saying so, you wouldn't stand a chance.”

He looked at her again in the mirror, but she focused her gaze out the window. Cosima probably would have gotten into an argument with him, or put on her headphones anyway, and Delphine would have been their ears for the trip. She pictured Cosima as she stared out the window at the desert and the palm trees. She pictured Cosima in Haifa, walking along sun-bleached streets with her hair uncovered and the top two buttons of her shirt open to show that cute little dip between her collar bones. Delphine had once, with her lips, rested a single chocolate-covered almond in that little dip, while Cosima lay on her back with her hands tied to the bedpost. 

“You married, Ms. Cormier?” Rick asked.

She scowled at him. That was a damn good memory he just interrupted. “Doctor, please,” she said.

“Excuse me?”

“It's Doctor Cormier, not Ms.” For fuck's sake, that's how it was written on all of their paperwork, had he bothered to check. 

“Oh! Sorry about that.” He laughed. “So, _Doctor_ Cormier, is there a Mister Doctor Cormier? I don’t see a ring on your finger, but maybe you do things a little different in France.”

She took a deep breath and flared her nostrils. The game was expected, if entirely unwelcome. “Yes,” she said.

He made some little disappointed noises. “Yeah, I figured you were probably taken. How's he feel about you being out here by yourself?”

“Devastated,” she said. “I'm sure.”

* * *

In Basra, she was greeted by a dry, 31 degree breeze when Rick opened the door for her at the hotel. Carlisle was there already, having swept the area with his local team. “Hot enough for you?” Carlisle asked. She twitched her eyebrows at him, and followed him to the hotel's conference room, where they discussed local security threats and her plans for the evening and following days. She hadn't made any contact with the Basra Leda yet, and had no contact information for her, and not for the first time, she butted heads with the security team about how much flexibility she could or should have.

“We cannot sweep every location in the city,” Carlisle repeated. He'd said that in Najaf, too. 

“I'm aware of that,” she replied. “I'm not asking you to. I just need to find this woman. An escort should be sufficient.”

“Basra's unpredictable,” said another team member, a woman named Masterson who was based here in Basra. “We can provide a small team, two or three people max while you're out on the street.”

Delphine could have pointed out that she'd never had more than three people in her escort here before. “Fine,” she said. 

*

The morning after arriving in Basra, Delphine was out trying to find the local Leda clone when her phone rang with an unfamiliar French number. She was at an outdoor café, showing people Cosima's picture (with her hair covered) and asking if anyone knew a woman who looked like her, while Masterson translated for her. Stepping away from the other customers, Delphine answered the phone. “Allô?” she said.

“Delphine Cormier, putain de merde!” Anaïs's unmistakable voice crackled over the international connection so loudly Delphine pulled the phone from her ear.

“Oui oui, c'est moi!” she laughed. She'd emailed Anaïs, one of her few remaining friends from Paris, a few months earlier, and only now was Anaïs calling.

_“Where the fuck are you, then?”_ Anaïs asked. _“Still in Canada?”_

Grinning at the simple pleasure of speaking her own language for a change, she turned her back to both Masterson and the second guard, who watched her with a bored frown. Carlisle was close by in a car, in case they needed to leave quickly.

_“No, actually,”_ she told Anaïs. _“I'm in Iraq at the moment, but – ”_

_“Iraq?!”_

_“It's a long story.”_

_“I'm sure it is, and I hope that you'll tell me sometime. You're coming back to Paris, though? That's what you said. Sorry it took me so long to respond, by the way. I never check that email anymore. It's just I was up for hours with the baby yesterday, and so I went through and cleaned out all my inboxes. It's lucky I saw your name, otherwise I would have just deleted it en mass with everything else.”_

_“I'm glad you didn't.”_

_“Me too! What are you doing in Iraq? Isn't it dangerous over there? Are you back with MSF?”_

Delphine looked around. Some teenagers listened with the rapt attention of those children in Djibouti who'd been so entranced by Cosima last month, and they were not deterred by Delphine moving away from them and ducking her head. How many people here spoke French was unclear, but more than likely someone understood at least some of what she was saying. No one here needed to know that she was here alone.

_“Euh, it's complicated,”_ she told Anaïs.

The excitement in Anaïs' voice waned. _“Of course it is. Well, when are you coming back? I'm usually quite busy, but I can make time if you give me advanced notice.”_

_“The end of May, hopefully. When I have my calendar, I can give you better dates.”_ She didn't add that there was a slight chance those dates would need to be changed last minute, because none of their plans could ever be very firm.

_“Yes, please do. I would offer you a place to sleep with us, but honestly we don't have any room right now.”_

_“No, no, it's okay. I have reservations somewhere.”_ From the corner of her eye, Delphine saw Masterson trying to get her attention, so she wrapped up the conversation with a promise to email later. When she went to the guard, Masterson pointed to the teenagers who'd been watching and listening so intently.

“Don't give them any ideas,” she said. 

* * * 

She found Hafza, the clone living in Basra, operating a small café in a neighborhood that was still pocketed by bullet holes. Finding her took a few days, but treating her was easy – Hafza's father and former monitor told her she needed the treatment, so Hafza accepted it. The arrangement was curious enough to give Delphine pause. Almost all monitors as of 2016 were romantic partners of the clones, in some way, shape, or form. Thus far, Yasir was the only _parent_ monitor Delphine had come across. 

After the inoculation, as Delphine removed her gloves and packed away her supplies in her medical bag sitting on a café table, Yasir set little bottles of booze, a pot of coffee, and some snacks on another table and gestured for Delphine to join them, but she shook her head. She felt another head cold coming on and wanted to talk with Cosima again before Cosima flew back to North America in a few hours. Cosima’s appointment with Lonah, the clone in Haifa, had been that morning, and Delphine hadn’t yet heard how that went, except for Cosima's quick text of _Success!_

Yasir insisted. “Doctor Cormier, please,” he said, “let us be good hosts.”

He was a towering bear of a man, dwarfing his Cosima-sized daughter and her dainty husband. He'd made everything about this treatment easy, and would almost certainly be offended if she declined more firmly, so she sighed and accepted, taking only a moment to text Cosima.

_Busy with our Leda,_ she said, _I'll try calling you later, but don't worry if I don't. Have a good flight. Tell me everything tomorrow._ With the addition of a few kissing emojis, she sent the message and put her phone away. She also had a quick word with Burkam, her current guard. Since Hafza and her family all spoke passable English, Delphine didn't have a translator, just a guard.

“Sure thing,” Burkam said, his eyes hidden behind reflective sunglasses.

She had a cup of coffee and some sweet bread, and shared a hookah pipe with Hafza's husband Faisal, who did shoe repairs and haircuts in the patch of concrete in front of the café. Delphine let the watermelon-flavored smoke linger in her mouth and nasal passages while the family talked about traveling and world affairs. Paris, they all agreed, was the most beautiful city in the world, and they had nothing but compliments for the French people. They had strong feelings about the Americans who'd left them all in the dust and to the mercy of IS. They had even stronger feelings about the current Iraqi government, which angered them so much they slipped back into Arabic.

While they talked and Delphine's head swam with the caffeine and nicotine, her attention stuck on Hafza, the Leda of the day. Hafza was plump, and she kept her fingernails long and painted, but she laughed like Cosima did, leaning forward and pushing her face outward, and she had those Leda teeth. 

“Not all Americans supported the war,” Delphine reminded them at one point, after they'd been in Arabic for a few minutes. “A lot of them didn't, actually.”

It was the first time she'd spoken in at least an hour, and all three Iraqis stared at her. 

“We know,” Yasir said. “But that doesn't matter to us now, does it?”

Delphine wanted to tell them that Cosima had marched against the war in college, that she and her parents gave money and wrote letters to support Iraqi refugees in the US, and fighting against the recent ban on travelers from Muslim-majority countries. She wanted to tell them all that, but her head was spinning a little, and she simultaneously tired and wide awake, and before she knew it, the conversation had moved on without her.

By the time Delphine left the café, evening was settling into the city, heavy and orange, and her veins buzzed from the various stimulants. _Cosima won't be happy with me_ , she thought. _I'll be awake all night._

She caught herself and sighed. Cosima wouldn't be in bed with her that night, or even in the room. She should have been, but she wasn't. It didn't matter to anyone if Delphine was awake or not.

When she got to him, Burkam was so spaced out staring into the middle distance that he jumped when Delphine approached, his hand going for his gun out of habit.

“Ready to go, ma'am?” he said, a little too eagerly.

“Yes,” she said. 

They walked in the direction of the city square, the guard walking a few feet to the side and behind Delphine. As they walked, more and more people joined them on the sidewalks going in the same direction, but none of them paid much attention to Delphine. They walked with a purpose, heads held high, sone with flags or signs in hand, and they talked with loud, excited voices. Soon the sidewalks were so crowded with people that they were walking in the streets. Of course. Evening protests had been increasing in Basra as unemployment dragged on; Delphine should not have been so surprised.

Then a hand shook her arm and she jumped.

“Bonjour!” It was one of the customers from the café a few days ago, who'd heard her talking to Anaïs.

“Bonsoir,” Delphine replied, trying not to look as panicked as she felt, having someone grab her arm like that, with the guard not doing anything about it. Before either of them could speak further, the woman was swallowed up with a backwards wave into the crowd ahead. 

When the streets opened up to the crowd, revealing the square, Delphine's guard was at least seven feet behind her, and when she turned to look for him, he was hurrying to get closer through an ever-thickening mass of excited bodies. Rick Weiland should have been close by in an SUV, but with the street clogged with protestors, Delphine had no idea where that car was, or how to get to it. She got her phone out and got as far as unlocking the screen before the men beside her started jumping and pumping their arms in the air. One of them knocked into her arm and sent her phone clattering onto the asphalt, knocking the backing off and the battery out.

“Putain!” she cried, and dropped to her knees to gather up the pieces before further damage could be done. 

Legs jostled her as she picked all the pieces up and stuffed them in her pockets, and for a moment she could barely stand. Once she was back on steady feet, the crowd pushed her forward, and she had almost no choice in the direction she took. She was guided by the throngs of people who now chanted and waved the Iraqi flag overhead. Most of the people were young men, but here and there she saw women, most more energetic and agitated even than the passionate young male protestors around her. People carried each other on their shoulders, and some threw things into the air. 

She had lost all sight of her security guard.

_It's fine,_ she repeated to herself, trying to steady her breath and heart rate. _You've been to protests before. Just find a way to get out of this one._

With great effort, she wormed her way sideways even as the marchers pushed forward. She was of the same height as many of them, which was handy, as she could see they were heading towards the government buildings and consulates - not too surprising. The people of Basra protested often – against the government, against business leaders who didn't help them. The protests were focused on the economy, on the lack of jobs and basic infrastructure. They were not anti-American or anti-foreigner. They had no reason to turn against Delphine. She repeated that again and again like a mantra as she squeezed between pressing sweaty bodies to get to the outskirts. The overwhelming smell of body odor, cigarette smoke, and cologne did nothing to clear her head.

She had nearly succeeded in touching the edge of the crowd when the popping started. Like popcorn, little clusters of explosives went off, scattered all around. Everyone rushed to the sides, pushing Delphine up against the man beside her, who tripped over someone else and took them all down.

Her medical bag broke most of her fall, likely keeping her from breaking both wrists, but her right knee took the brunt for the lower half of her body. Not thinking, she covered her head with her arms and curled around the bag, and the supplies and precious treatment inside, while everyone around her shouted and jostled around. Her field of vision was a patch of cracked asphalt, the strap of her bag, and various people's feet. Someone landed on top of her with a scream, compressing her torso against the bag and robbing her of a few breaths, then went away again.

An eternity or a minute later, a rough hand grabbed her arm and yanked. Now she was shouting with everyone else, and she kicked out at the person, until Burkam's face appeared near hers. “Get up!” he shouted.

She didn’t remember leaving the scene, getting off the ground, or even picking up her bag. The next thing she remembered was the scenery rushing by the windows of the company’s SUV. Burkam sat beside her in the back passenger seat, the medical bag between them. “Are you alright?” he asked.

She turned to look at him, wide eyed, and then scanned the rest of the vehicle's interior. Panic cracked inside her head. “Where's Cosima?” she asked. “Is she – ?”

“Ma'am?”

She had her hand on the door handle, vehicle speed be damned, before she remembered that Cosima wasn't even in the same country, and had not been in the protest at all. Cosima was in Israel. 

_No._ That wasn’t right either. Cosima was flying to Minnesota today.

Delphine shook her head and tried to steady herself. Her entire body buzzed with the sort of numbness that accompanied a panic attack or a sudden return to warmth after a day of freezing temperatures. Her head scarf was half-on, half-off, so she removed it completely. “Never mind,” she said.

He nodded and looked away again. “That shouldn’t have happened.”

A voice from the driver’s seat agreed. “No, it most definitely should not have.”

Back at her hotel, the protest (or had it been a riot? Where had those pops come from, anyway?) was worlds away. Classical music played softly in the lobby and a staff member was setting out an urn of complimentary tea near a tray of complimentary biscuits. Rick, who'd driven her back, led Delphine into the lobby with his hand hovering at the small of her back and her medical bag in his other hand. She lacked the strength to insist on carrying it herself.

“Oh, no, madame!” the man at the front desk exclaimed when she came in. “You are hurt! What happened?”

She looked down at herself and saw, for the first time, the tear in the knee of her khaki slacks and the blood in the fabric. “Euh...”

“We’ll get you cleaned up,” Rick assured her. “We’ll need to debrief too, but first we’ll make sure you’re okay.”

She nodded and let him lead her up to her room. He gave the staff some instructions – her entire stay, including room service and all other extraneous charges, should be billed to the security company from now on, and some other instructions that Delphine didn't quite catch. The full-body numbness was subsiding and gradually being replaced by pain. Her knee hurt the most, but there weren't many parts of her body that didn't hurt. Looking at her filthy, lumpy medical bag in Rick's meaty hand, she got the feeling that it hurt a lot too.

In the elevator, she pulled the pieces of her cell phone from her pockets and looked at them, baffled as to how they fit together.

“We can get you a new phone,” Rick said. “Don't worry about that.”

She clicked the battery into place and felt a flicker of relief, the first she'd felt since realizing Cosima was safe because she wasn't there. “Thank you,” she said. “I'll let you know.”

Once she'd limped into her room and firmly assured Rick that she was fine on her own for the rest of the night, she opened the medical bag. The little boxes of gloves, alcohol swabs, and bandages were all crushed but useable. The plastic bottles of over-the-counter medicines were unscathed. The plastic case which carried Hafza's treatment, and which still contained a single extra vial of it, however, was cracked almost in two. They'd always thought the case was sturdy, but clearly not sturdy enough, and the vial inside had also broken, spilling its contents onto the foam that should have protected it.

It was just one vial. She had plenty more in another case here in the room – more, in fact, than they needed for this leg of the trip.

But it was Cosima's cure. Cosima developed it, cultivated it, and reproduced it. It was created with an egg that, genetically speaking, could just as well have been Cosima's, and it should have treated one of Cosima's sisters. Instead, Delphine had fallen on top of it and broken it.

And Cosima wasn't even here to hold her when she cried.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many thanks, for this and upcoming chapters, to EverElusive for help with cultural / regional notes. It is very much appreciated!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note that the timeline of this story follows OB's tradition of magical chronology, and does not always fit perfectly with an actual timeline of real life events. However, all of the current events mentioned here are based in reality.

The news came first thing in the morning. Delphine had a few minutes to spare before checking out and meeting the security team, so she sat on the edge of the bed and read through her news alerts. Her throat hurt more than it had yesterday, her body ached no matter how she moved or what position she was in, and her right leg didn't want to bear much weight. The news, at least, distracted her from her physical discomfort.

“Montreal Declares State of Emergency Following Record-Breaking Flooding” _Unfortunate. Scroll past._

“US Launches Missiles into Syria Following Chemical Weapons Attack” _Bookmark to read later._

“Iran Stops Issuing Visas to US Citizens, Voids All Current Visas, Leaves Hundreds Stranded in Limbo” _Putain de merde..._

Delphine flipped through the article, panic rising. If they couldn't go into Iran, they couldn't cure any of the five Leda clones living there, and –

She shook her head and softly slapped her own cheek. The article made it clear that only _US_ passport holders would be affected. Delphine held an EU passport, and Cosima wasn't going to Iran anyway. The Israeli stamp made sure of that, regardless of what country she was from, and it was unlikely that Cosima could have gotten a new passport in time to get to Iran before Delphine treated everyone there. It didn't matter that Iran was angry at the US government, or why.

Her phone dinged with a new message from Rick. _Ready when you are, Doctor._

They’d debriefed late the night before, after she'd cleaned herself up and regained her composure, and he’d informed her that Burkam, the guard she’d lost track of during the protest, had been removed from “active duty” for the time being. She'd filled out an incident report and signed a few statements to the effect that she was not holding the company accountable for what had happened and would be taking no legal action. Really, what Delphine had wanted the most was to forget all about it. 

“I'll notify the Foundation,” she told him. “You don't need to send them anything. It's not a big deal.”

Left unsaid was what would have happened had events escalated further. In Cosima's case, the US military could have been alerted. France did have a military presence in Iraq (Delphine had checked), but whether they were equipped to assist a single French citizen in distress was something she was happy never to find out first hand.

Rick met her in the hotel lobby at five minutes after five, in his uniform black polo shirt and gray slacks, his pistol not-so-subtly concealed at his hip. He offered to carry her luggage for her, and she refused. Her knee still screamed with every step, but she needed some measure of autonomy to hang onto while being ferried all over the place, and to assure herself that she was not helpless. Besides, her knee still worked – it just needed to get over itself and keep working like everyone else.

Rick wasn't entirely convinced, though. He watched her try not to limp out to the vehicle, load her bags in, and then pull herself into her seat. “How's your knee?” he asked.

“Much better, thank you.”

She zoned out on the ride to Basra International Airport, wondering about the other people who'd been at that protest last night. Fifty people had been injured, according to official reports, but there were no reported fatalities. Also not reported were the kinds and severity of the injuries. Delphine rested her arms on her medical bag, which doubled as her carry-on luggage and which now contained almost her entire supply of the clone vaccine – six vials were tucked into her checked luggage just in case something else happened to the medical bag. She also had various other medical supplies in the bag, though, and she could have treated people yesterday. Instead, she'd curled up in a ball until her private security team whisked her away.

“So, Doctor,” Rick said, breaking her reverie, “How does your husband feel about what happened yesterday?”

Delphine stared at the back of his head. “Excuse me?”

“You said you were married, right?”

She hadn't, exactly, but now wasn't the time to clarify. “Mm,” she said.

“How's he feel about you getting caught up with all that, uh, that rabble yesterday?”

She licked her lips and looked back out the window. She'd said nothing to Cosima about it. By the time she got back to her hotel, got her phone put back together, washed herself up, and debriefed the night before, Cosima had been well on her way back to North America, leaving Delphine with a sweet voicemail message and a promise to check in once she was settled in Minnesota. “I don't know yet,” she told Rick.

“Hm. Well, I’m not married anymore, but I wouldn’t want my wife anywhere near that business. Hell, I wouldn’t even let her anywhere near Iraq.”

It was no wonder, then, that he was no longer married, but Delphine kept her mouth shut on that issue. Jérôme wouldn’t have “let her” there, either. He wouldn’t have cared if Hafza died of the clone disease. Cosima, on the other hand, would have gone in herself if she could, but she trusted Delphine to do it for her. For them.

*

During her three-hour layover at the Baghdad airport, Delphine's phone dinged three times in rapid succession while she read the article about US airstrikes in Syria. Opening the new message, she found three pictures – the exterior of the life sciences building at the University of Minnesota, an interior hallway, and a stone tunnel leading to a courtyard. Another message popped up.

_Remember this place?_

Delphine grinned at the images on her phone. Of course she remembered – the heart-stopping cold when she stepped out of Aldous' car her first day in Minnesota, the odd nasal twang of Minnesota English, the dramatically different university culture. Students wearing pajamas to attend classes.

Seeing Cosima for the first time as a living, breathing person instead of just a tag number in scientific logs.

The taste of red wine. Their first kiss, awkward and unexpected, and speed-walking back to her apartment to get her thoughts in order.

A couple of years later, and Delphine still hadn't gotten her thoughts back in order. She really didn't want to, either. She texted Cosima back, _Of course I do. I'll never forget._

She sat back in the creaky faux-leather airport chair, lost in her memories. Convincing Cosima to join her for Aldous' talk and being amazed by how easily Cosima went along with everything. Running with her through campus, hand in hand, having more fun than she'd had in years. Desperately wanting to see her again and convincing herself it was just scientific curiosity.

Less pleasant memories cropped up too, of course. Aldous' hotel room, and his insistence that she meet him there a couple nights a week to “debrief,” and the insistence on what she wore when she did. The smell and taste of his mouth wash. Lying to Cosima. Lying to herself.

Another message popped up. _I wonder how that ex-boyfriend of yours is doing back in Paris._

She snorted and muttered “brat” under her breath. _Heartbroken,_ she replied. _I hear he's never really gotten over me._

A series of silly face emojis followed that statement. _What would you have done,_ Cosima texted next, _if I hadn't followed you out into the hallway that day? Like, if I'd just ignored you and your fake tears?_

The conversation was rapidly progressing out of text-friendly territory and into more-appropriate-for-a-phone-call territory, but the waiting area of the airport was crowded and rowdy. As it was, Delphine was not attracting much attention, but as soon as she started speaking, she would. It didn't always stop her, especially when it came to talking with Cosima, but right now she was exhausted, still aching all over, and feeling unusually claustrophobic. She wanted the other people to move farther away, not closer in.

 _I don't know,_ she texted. _But the tears weren’t fake, actually._

_Where are you rn?_

Instead of texting her response back, Delphine snapped a photo of the waiting area and sent that, making sure to include part of the departures board in her shot.

 _Ah_ Cosima replied. _When’s your flight?_

_Boarding in twenty minutes_

The word “typing” stayed on the screen for longer than usual, followed by three little dots. When a message finally came through, all it said was, _Wish I could go with you._

 _Me too_ she typed. 

* * *

They had arranged a tour guide for their trip to Iran. It wasn't because they wanted one, or because they couldn't arrange their own trip details themselves, but because Iran required them to. Or rather, had required it, for all US citizens, who now weren't allowed in the country at all. As an EU citizen, Delphine didn't need a tour guide to travel around, but their guide's travel company didn't give refunds, and also provided translation services, so it seemed like a net benefit. Kimia Rajabi, the arranged guide for Delphine's entire time in Iran, greeted her after baggage claim with a firm handshake and a wide smile.

“Salam,” Delphine said.

“Salam,” Kimia replied. “You speak Persian?”

“No, sorry. Just salam, and a few other words.” The other words, the same medical vocabulary Delphine tried to memorize for every language spoken by her Leda patients, did not need to be shared with Kimia just yet. 

Kimia nodded. She appeared to be in her late twenties or early thirties, with bright eyes and dimples when she smiled. Auburn hair peeked out from under her loosely draped hijab. “Is it only you, then?” she asked.

It would be this way for the next several countries, Delphine reflected, for every situation where they had made reservations. “Yes, unfortunately. My partner isn't able to join us.” 

Kimia nodded again and gestured for Delphine to accompany her to the parking deck, where Kimia's car waited. “Your partner,” Kimia said once there were fewer people around, “American?”

Delphine took a deep breath. They'd been told to expect blatant distrust and hatred of Americans in Iran, even more so than in other countries. “Yes,” she said. 

There was more nodding, but Kimia's expression didn't change. “But you are French, so you had no problems, yes?”

“I didn't have any problems getting in, no.”

As they walked, Kimia looked down at Delphine's leg, which still radiated pain with each step. “Do you need help? I can carry.”

“No.” She clutched the medical bag closer. “Thank you.”

That night, in her hotel room near the Imam Khomeini Hospital, Delphine inspected her knee again. It was bruised and swollen, with gray and purple splotches spreading around and down from the knee cap to her shin and up her thigh a few inches, and a one-inch diameter scab sat on it like a little shingle. Even after several hundred milligrams of paracetamol it still hurt like a bitch. In Canada or France she would have gone to a doctor and gotten an x-ray. Here, she hesitated. The most she would do for now was get a bag of ice from the machine in the hallway, and buy an elastic bandage at a convenient drugstore tomorrow. And keep taking paracetamol.

If Cosima were there, she would have fussed over Delphine, insisted on carrying everything for her, getting her ice packs, and kissing the whole area “until it's all better.” She would be endlessly sweet, so sweet Delphine would almost want to slap her for it, to say she didn't deserve it and that anyway she was just fine.

Just now, though, she would have given up her other leg to have Cosima kiss her.

She unlocked her phone and stared at the text message Cosima had sent a few hours ago, which Delphine hadn't yet answered. 

_Skype tonight???_

It wasn’t that Delphine didn’t want to Skype with Cosima. She wanted very much to Skype with her, to see her face and hear her voice and hear all about her time back in Minnesota, not to mention her appointment with Lonah the other day.

She was much less looking forward to telling Cosima how _she_ was doing. Cosima had heard about the protests in Basra yesterday, and texted Delphine about them. _I hope you weren't too close to that,_ she'd said. _Not that I don't support them or anything. It's just maybe not the best place to be tall, blonde, and super sexy._

That was like Cosima – working her cheeky little charm into everything, even her worries. And she was worried about Delphine, far more than she'd been worried for the pair of them before they left Canada. Delphine saw it in her eyes when they Skyped, heard it in her voice when they talked, saw it between the lines of her texts and emails, and that was even when Cosima wasn't being overt about it. Of course, if their positions were reversed, Delphine would be the same way, but she didn't want Cosima worried. She hadn't responded to Cosima's text about the protests. 

Now, finally, she texted Cosima back. _Skype in half an hour? I just got to my room._

 _OK!_ popped up before Delphine even put her phone back down.

Thirty minutes gave her time to shower, wash her hair, change into sleep wear, and get that bag of ice from the hallway ice machine. Once she was clean and changed, she situated herself on the bed with extra pillows on her lap to cushion the laptop and her knee and keep the bag of ice in place.

For some reason, when the Skype window opened, she expected to see Cosima's old apartment in the background, instead of a standard hotel room. Cosima was smiling, though, three years older than when she'd had that old apartment, and experienced in ways neither of them could have expected back in those early days together. It was only fitting for the background to change as well.

“Hey, beautiful,” Cosima said when her picture appeared on Delphine's screen. “How's things over in the Islamic Republic of Iran? Looks like you had a shower.”

“I did. The water pressure is nice. You'd like it.”

“God, I would. The pressure at this hotel is, uh, kind of lacking. It's good to see you, though. I miss you like fucking crazy.”

Delphine smiled at her, heart aching to reach out and hold her face in both hands. “I know; I miss you too. I keep thinking you're around, and being crushed when I remember that you're not.”

Cosima groaned and rolled her head dramatically around. “God, I know! It doesn't help that I'm surrounded by the place we met. Anyway.” She shook her head. “I'm going to the post office tomorrow – I didn't have time today – and I'll get my new passport situation all set up. It might take a couple of weeks, though. It did last time.” She pulled a face, disappointed but resigned.

“That's okay. You can't come into Iran anyway.”

“Yeah, I saw that. Kinda bitchy, but not entirely unexpected.” Her frown deepened. “There's some discussion online that other countries might follow suit, too, what with everything this, ahem, government is doing with foreign nationals. We'll just have to keep an eye on it, I guess.”

Delphine nodded. “That's all we can do.”

“I mean, until I can, like, stay in Canada long enough to qualify for citizenship.”

That was a surprise. They had talked generally about future plans together, but they'd never specified a place they would like to stay after their travels were completed. “You'd want to stay in Canada?” Delphine asked her. “In Toronto?”

“The more I think about it, the more sense it makes.” Cosima spun her ring around her thumb. “Like, have you seen the current US government? And that doesn't look like changing any time soon, and we're already seeing the repercussions in places we travel. A Canadian passport would make things a lot easier, and I already have partial residency.”

“Hm. The passport situation will resolve itself, though,” she reminded her, “once we're finished curing everyone. You can stay in the US forever after that if you want.”

“I mean, yeah, but that's not the only reason. There's my whole clone family, and well, Canada's a lot better about a lot of things, frankly. Not perfect, but better.”

Delphine had never really thought of it that way, but she nodded and thought about them settling down in Toronto together. They'd already decided to get married there. Which reminded her... “Everyone keeps asking me if I'm married,” she told Cosima. “Much more than they usually do.”

“Oh? What are you telling them?”

“It depends. I told the security team in Iraq that I was, sort of. I didn't say that I _wasn't_ , at least.” As she spoke, she watched Cosima's face. Cosima was deeply interested, her face rested against her fingers and her lips pursed like she was reading a fascinating genetics article. “With the tour guide here,” Delphine went on, “I said that I wasn't. She saw my hands and assumed, and I sort of confirmed that she was right.”

The furrow on Cosima's forehead deepened and Delphine chided herself. Cosima had been so concerned about not having a ring for her, so worried that her proposal was somehow lesser because of that, and now Delphine had gone and brought it up again. She should have kept her mouth shut.

“Does she think it'll be an issue?” Cosima asked.

“Only a little.” She tried remembering the guide's exact words. “She warned me to be careful. She said that a lot of men will have ideas because I'm not married.”

Cosima grunted. “God, you know, this whole trip would be way easier if there weren't any men involved.”

It was the sort of sentence that might be said flippantly, but there was no trace of levity in Cosima's voice. Instead, she rubbed her forehead and stared off into some corner of the screen, her jaw set.

“That's not really true,” Delphine said softly. “Most of them are fine. Some of them are wonderful.”

Cosima shook her head. “Yeah, I know. Whatever. Anyway, does the guide think it would make a difference if you were married? Like, if guys see a ring on your finger, does she really think they'll leave you alone? I don't feel like most guys pay that much attention.”

“Some will, some won't.”

Cosima grunted again. “Did you have any trouble with that in Iraq?”

“No more than usual.”

“Usual, like, what? What counts as usual right now?”

“No more trouble than other places in this part of the world.”

Cosima had the same sort of face she'd had when the man harassed Delphine on the bus in Morocco, or when that Canadian expat in Ecuador talked, in detail, about how much he loved French women. “I wish I could do something about it,” Cosima said finally. 

Delphine wished that, too, but she was tired and lonely and aching, so all she said was, “I just wish you were here.”

“Yeah, me too. I was reading up on fake passports on my way over here, by the way. Like, passports for countries that don't exist, or maybe that used to exist, like Rhodesia and whatever. Wakanda, places like that. I could just get one of those and pop over to see you.”

It would have been a funny thought, but Delphine was already on edge. “Don't, chérie. It's not worth it; you'd be in jail in seconds. It's only a few more weeks, and then we're together again.”

Cosima sighed and make a little _tsch_ sound. “Alright, alright.”

“Tell me what you've been doing. How was Lonah's treatment?”

“Oh.” Cosima leaned back and relaxed a little. “Better than expected. The nurse made some comment about how we look similar and I about freaked out, but Lonah just laughed. Apparently she's heard that before, in some weird situations, and she'd kind of used to it.”

“Really?”

“That's what she said. Like, she said she did a tour of Amsterdam, and everyone in the tour said she and the guide looked like twins. So, if we have a hard time finding the Amsterdam Leda, I suggest we take a city tour.”

Delphine was too tired to dig out the European Ledas information and see if they had employment information for the Amsterdam Leda. “That's lucky,” she said, “that she wasn't weirded out.”

“Totally lucky. She's convinced she just has “one of those faces.” I just kind of laughed and gave her the shot, gave her the gift card for participating, and wished her a pleasant day.”

“That's all you can do.”

“Right. Like, she has no idea how right she is, but I'm not gonna be the one to tell her.”

* * *

Zahra, the Leda in Tehran, was the fifth Leda Delphine had seen wearing glasses, including Cosima. Zahra's glasses had thick frames like Cosima's, too, but they were formed in squat rectangles that perched on Zahra's nose. 

Zahra started coughing as soon as she came into the examination room at the hospital where Delphine had set up. Kimia was there too, to translate. Zahra quietly apologized for coughing and moved to wipe her hands, but Delphine stopped her, pointing to the blood on Zahra's left hand. “How long has that been happening to you?”

Kimia said it in Persian, and Zahra shrugged.

“Sometimes,” Kimia translated. “But I cough a lot, so it's just that my throat is quite raw.”

Delphine listened to Zahra's lungs and heard what she expected – the same rattling and wheezing that had plagued Cosima for so long. Zahra's mouth had that same heartbreaking pout after a particularly bad cough, too, and she held her head to the side for just a second, just like Cosima would, to center herself before resuming the charade that everything was fine. Delphine very nearly reached out and wrapped her arms around Zahra, catching herself at the last minute. Zahra was not Cosima.

“It's good we're here,” Delphine told her, and held up the syringe. “This will help with that.”

With Kimia's help, she got Zahra ready for the treatment, which would be a bit more invasive since she'd developed symptoms. Delphine was well practiced at this, but something about seeing Zahra laying back on the bed, her headscarf off and her hair around her head, while Cosima was so far away, made Delphine's heart ache. She wanted to hold this woman's hand, to stroke her face and cradle her head in her arms, but Zahra was a stranger. Delphine just smiled at her and assured her it wouldn't take long.

She hadn't been able to hold Cosima, either, for a while. She'd stopped conducting Cosima's medical tests when Rachel Duncan sent her out of the country, but when she returned it was her own decision. She could not have touched Cosima, listened to her failing lungs and her still beating heart, couldn't have made her gasp in pain from the needle in her arm, without needing to hold her. To kiss the spot where the needle had been, to sooth her worries. So nurses did the treatment and the testing, or Scott did, and Nealon processed the results. Delphine saw the numbers appear on her laptop screen at the office or in her apartment, where she could school her face into a calm expression.

“All finished,” Delphine said, almost surprised that she'd managed the treatment while her mind was elsewhere. There was something to be said for muscle memory, after all. 

That night, she dined with Kimia and her family in Kimia's parents' house near Hor Square in the center of Tehran. She had tried avoiding or turning down the invitation, but Kimia would be traveling with her throughout the country for the next twelve days or so, and goodwill was essential. 

“In Iran, this is what we do,” Kimia said. “We have restaurants, yes, but mostly, we eat at home. Hospitality is very important here. More important than in France, I think.” She grinned at Delphine, who could only agree. In all the years she'd spent in France, she never would have invited a relative stranger to eat dinner with her, and no one else she knew would have, either. 

Kimia also did not fail to notice Delphine's continued attempts at hiding her limp. “What happened?” she asked Delphine as they walked towards the house.

“Nothing.”

Kimia's facial expression would have found good company with Siobhan Sadler's bullshit detector. “Please. My parents will ask, too. If you tell me, I can help explain it to them in whatever way you want. If you don't tell me, I cannot help you.”

“I fell on my knee. It just needs some time to heal.” 

Kimia watched her limp past. “Time you are not having, I think. You stood up the whole day, almost. My father is a doctor, by the way,” she added.

Delphine spun to face her. “ _I_ am a doctor!”

“Yes, but doctors are terrible at treating themselves. You think you are fine, okay. My father will try to cure you.”

“As long as he doesn't touch me.”

Kimia was right. Her father asked almost immediately about Delphine's leg, and suggested various remedies for it, including an actual examination with x-rays. “If it stays,” he told her, finger uncomfortably close to her leg, “go to a doctor, yes?”

“I will.”

To his daughter, Mr. Rajabi said, “You make sure she goes to a doctor, yes?”

Kimia held her hands up. “I will do my best!”

As expected, Kimia's mother served far more food than Delphine or anyone else present would ever be able to finish. She always did this, Kimia told her, when Kimia brought clients for dinner. A traditional home cooked meal was part of the Iranian tour package, apparently. Grilled chicken and lamb had pride of place on the table, accompanied by grilled tomatoes, onions, lemons, and of course plentiful rice. The main dishes were then paired with salads and stews, everything heavily and deliciously seasoned with saffron, garlic, or sumac. When Delphine finally sat back and waved that she wouldn't eat anymore, she suspected that she would be sweating out spices for the next week. Only then did Kimia's parents ask Delphine questions about her purpose in Iran.

“You are a doctor, too,” Mr. Rajabi said. “And you're here to treat Iranians?”

“Yes.”

“For what, if I may ask?”

“It's a genetic disorder. It's quite rare.”

Kimia chimed in then. “The women are all very similar, you said.”

“Yes.” Delphine's ears burned with anticipatory anxiety. Since Kimia would be traveling with her, translating for her, and likely meeting most of the five Iranian Ledas Delphine would treat, some kind of explanation was required, and giving it upfront seemed better than waiting for Kimia to say something about it. “It's, euh, it's an interesting combination of genes that causes it. A very specific combination, which also influences appearance.”

“Only women?” Mrs. Rajabi asked. 

“Yes.”

“It's quite dangerous,” Kimia added. “The patient today was coughing up blood, and she had growths in her uterus.”

Both of her parents made appropriate expressions of concern and discomfort. 

“The treatment is effective, though,” Delphine added. “And we have a vaccine. Within two weeks, every woman in Iran with these features, with this genetic profile, will be cured.”

Kimia smiled at her from across the table. “Inch'Allah.”

“Inch'Allah,” Delphine agreed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again to EverElusive for checking over the cultural stuff, and to FrenchClone to pointing out that Delphine was taking the wrong meds.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As I mentioned before, real life events are mentioned out of place from their actual time line. OB magical chronology and all that. Consider this disclaimer in effect for all future chapters, as well.

“You can't renew your passport here,” Karen, the clerk at the post office, said, “if you don't live here.”

“I...” Cosima didn't know quite what to say to that. “I mean, I used to live here.”

“You have to go to the post office affiliated with your current mailing address to renew your passport.”

“Okay, well, I have gotten mail at my address here.” She dug in her bag to get the bundle of almost entirely junk mail she'd picked up from her old landlady, all of which had Cosima's name on it.

“But it's not your official address,” Karen countered. “Your official address is in Toronto.”

Cosima took a deep breath. “Okay, so, what's my best next step? Can I renew it at the post office up there?”

“You gotta go online. See what the website tells you to do, as a Canadian resident.”

She didn't miss the way the postal employee emphasized the words “Canadian resident.” It figured. Cosima's American passport kept her out of Iran, and her Canadian residency kept her from updating her American passport. Thanking Karen for her time, Cosima headed back out into the blustery Minnesota spring morning and into a neighboring café. She couldn't stand going back to her room at the Holiday Inn, even if it meant listening to the café's Michael Jackson marathon while sitting at a table the size of a textbook.

Minnesotans, at least, took their hot beverages very seriously, and Cosima got one of the best chai latte's she'd had in ages while she looked up “passport renewal” on her phone. 

She hadn't expected the process to be quick; it had taken weeks, after all, to renew her passport last time, after Beth contacted her. And of course she'd still have to get new travel visas, which would be its own pain in the ass, but she was pretty sure she could manage all of that in time to at least join Delphine in Turkey, and then on to Lebanon, Jordan, and Syria. She actually could have gone to Turkey whenever she wanted, even that afternoon, since Turkey didn't have a problem with Israeli stamps, but Delphine wouldn't be there until the end of April, three weeks away.

They'd agreed not to change the travel schedule any to accommodate Cosima's passport woes, but Cosima wished they could. She could spend two weeks in Turkey with Delphine _now_ , and _then_ come back to Canada and work on her first completed draft of her dissertation to submit. But no. Turkey was smack in the middle of their schedule, Iran and Kuwait on one side, and Lebanon, Jordan, and Syria on the other. It had made sense back in January.

The US passport office's website told her that as a Canadian resident, she could renew her passport through the mail. “Passports usually arrive within two to three weeks,” the website assured her, “though external factors in either the US or Canada may delay the delivery.”

“Swell,” Cosima said. She could print out the form at the hotel, get the requisite photos and documents in order, and have it all in the mail before returning to Toronto tomorrow morning. 

*

Standing in the complimentary office suite of the Holiday Inn an hour later, Cosima swore loudly enough to make some other passing guests turn and stare. A handwritten sign taped to the printer read “Out of Service Sorry.”

“Son of a bitch,” she said again.

An hour later, she was back on campus, in the Bio building, trying to print from there. This time, though, a different message popped up. “Enter your department-issued printer/copier code.” 

“Fucking piss,” she said. She'd had a printer/copier code when she lived here, two years ago, but that code wasn't working now. She called the IT phone number posted on the printer and left a voicemail message. On her way out of the building, she ran into her advisor, and told her about her printing issues. 

“Can you print it when you get back to Toronto?” her advisor asked.

“I mean...” Cosima shifted from foot to foot. “Yes. I was just really hoping to get it done a lot faster.”

“It's just an extra day,” her advisor said. “Or you can go to the copy / print place downtown. I think they're still in business.”

By the time Cosima reached the place in question, it was almost two in the afternoon, and she was hangry. When she saw yet another sign, this time announcing that they temporarily closed, it took all of Cosima's willpower not to break something, like the door, or her own skull. 

*

“I swear to God,” she told Delphine later that afternoon on the phone, “my life has been hexed by, like, a swamp witch, or something.”

Delphine giggled, but her laugh was caught short by something. For a few moments, Cosima heard muffled sounds, before Delphine returned to the line. “Yes, maybe. Or maybe those brownies Felix made had a very strange effect on you.”

“Oh, yeah, very funny, Miss “I drank the pool water while I was high” Cormier.”

“Brat.”

“Totally. Anyway, hex or no hex, I'll look into it some more in Toronto tomorrow. Worst comes to worst, I'll renew it by mail, but that'll take forever.”

“Mmhmm.” 

There it was again – a catch in Delphine's voice, like a sharp intake of air. “What are you doing?” Cosima asked. 

“Nothing. I'm sitting in my room.”

“Huh.”

“Why?”

“It sounds like you're, I dunno, lifting things or something.”

The notes of Delphine's laughter always made Cosima smile. “I'm not lifting anything! Except maybe my glass of water. Otherwise, I'm just sitting.” 

“Okay, if you say so. How was your day?”

“Good. I'm tired, of course. It's after midnight, and I'm very, very full. I think I've eaten enough to last the rest of the week.”

“Did you have to, like, unbutton your pants just so the button wouldn't pop off? That kind of full?”

“Essentially, though I did wait until I got to the hotel room to unbutton anything. I'm afraid I might be a little bit larger the next time you see me.”

The thought of Delphine being larger was a difficult one to imagine, but Cosima did her best. “That's okay. I'll roll you around. We'll get you a wheelbarrow or something.”

Delphine laughed some more and told her about Kimia, her local tour guide and interpreter, and about the clone she'd cured that afternoon. Iranians, Delphine said, were among the friendliest people she'd met thus far on their travels, so friendly Delphine was afraid she might drown in hospitality. 

“However,” she said, “I did buy something today, just to be safe, and I thought you should know.”

“Oh?”

There was the sound of shifting fabric on the other end, and Delphine hissed. 

“You okay?”

“Yes, fine. Euh, it's just... I've had a few men who seem interested, you know. I wanted something to discourage them.”

“Okay... so what'd you buy, a fake wedding ring or something?”

“Euh, yes, actually.” And there it was again, that catch in her voice, for the third time that conversation. Before Cosima could ask again, Delphine went on. “It was Kimia's idea. When we got to the hospital, the doctor helping us was, ehm, quite interested in me. So, after we treated Zahra, she took me to a jewelry shop near the hospital that has simple, cheap rings, and I bought the cheapest one that didn't need resizing.”

Cosima pictured that series of events in her mind, including Delphine going to the store with this Iranian woman and buying a wedding ring. “What, did she, like, help you pick it out or something?”

“She translated for me. I picked it out for myself.”

“What's it look like?”

There was a long pause, which did nothing for Cosima's peace of mind, and them her phone dinged. Staying on the line with Delphine, she checked the message and found a picture of Delphine's left hand, fingers extended to show a simple silver band on her ring finger. While she stared at it, Delphine's voice returned in the speaker. 

“I'm only wearing it when I'm around other people. Otherwise it stays in my pocket.”

Cosima swallowed a sudden lump in her throat and willed her voice to stay steady. “That sounds like a plan.”

Of course, Delphine noticed. “Cosima... don't think too much into it, okay? It doesn't... it's just for safety, for my mental health, at least. It's to keep men from – ”

“I know what it's for.” Cosima rubbed her forehead. “It's fine. It's probably a good idea; you're right.”

“I wish I didn't have to.”

“Yeah, me too.” For a few long moments, neither of them said anything, and all Cosima heard through her phone was Delphine's breathing, less regular than usual. Finally, Cosima said, “Thanks for telling me. You didn't, like, have to, but thanks. I like knowing what you're up to.”

“Of course, mon amour.”

The conversation seemed to be wrapping itself up, but Cosima lingered on the line anyway, never quite ready to said goodbye even for a day. Delphine, apparently, felt the same. After a loud deep breath, Delphine said, “I've been thinking...”

When she didn't finish the thought, Cosima prompted, “Thinking about what?”

“About Syria.”

“Oh. Yeah. That's tough.” _Tough_ was the understatement of the decade.

“Alison emailed me about all our plans for the next few countries, including Syria.”

Remembering Alison's previous emails about cutting costs, Cosima sat up straighter. “What did she have to say?”

“She was wondering how useful the security team in Iraq was, and how necessary it would be in Syria, since I'll be there with the International Aid Agency.”

“Seriously?”

On the other end, Delphine licked her lips and took a few more deep breaths. “She was polite about it. I think she just wants to get her money's worth.”

“ _Our_ money, Delphine. It's not Alison's, it's the Foundation's. Holy shit.”

“I told her that security in Syria would be essential to – ” Delphine broke off the sentence to make some little noises on her end, and then once her breathing came back into Cosima's ear, she still paused. “ – essential to ensure that the cure makes it to the Leda who needs it.”

“Essential so that _you_ make it back to _this_ Leda who needs _you,_ too.”

Delphine laughed softly. “Yes. That too. She asked about the translators, and the clinic costs, and everything else, too. I told her that we had to pay a fine to get from Basra to Baghdad, to pass the police check point, and I don't think she believed me.”

Cosima sighed and pinched her nose. “Alison knows, like, next to nothing about most places outside of her own neighborhood. We are not cutting back on security, or translation services, or clinic costs, or anything else.”

“I told her I didn't think it would be a good idea. In fact – ” She paused again. “ – I was thinking it would be a good idea to increase our security in Syria.”

“Okay.” Cosima didn't miss Delphine use of _our_ , but she didn't question it. With any luck, she would be able to join Delphine in Syria, and _our_ would again be appropriate. “We can make that happen, whether Alison likes it or not.”

*

Back at her little apartment under the Rabbit Hole, now occupied only by herself, her thoughts, and some extra vials of inoculate, Cosima went back to the link she'd bookmarked back in Minnesota, opening it on her laptop for better clickability. The difference now was that, instead of just informing US citizens living in Canada that they could renew via mail, it also noted that an on-going postal work strike in Canada would most likely delay delivery of their passport.

Wonderful.

Also there, in the block of text explaining the passport renewal options for Canadian residents with US citizenship, was a little blue link: _click here to make an appointment to renew your passport at the US embassy in Ottawa or with one of the US consulates in Canada_. An appointment could very well be faster than mail, she thought, especially with a postal strike in progress.

She clicked, hoping that said appointment could happen on Monday or Tuesday.

“Book an American Citizen Services Appointment” the next page read. It sounded promising, and as she scrolled she saw all the services that consulates and embassies could provide a citizen like herself, except, the page insisted, renouncing her citizenship. To do that, she had to go elsewhere. 

“Not quite ready for that yet,” she told the screen, and clicked the “passports” link.

_404 Page Not Found._

“What the shit?”

She tried again, and then again from a different browser, and then again from her phone. No change.

“Jesus mother of fucking tap-dancing Christ,” she said, and threw her phone onto the bed. It was like the whole bullshit trying to get into Israel all over again. At least this time no one's life was on the line. Just her heart.

The hexed-by-a-swamp-witch theory seemed more likely by the minute.

Well, maybe she could do this the old fashioned way, and show up to ask for an appointment. After cooling down some and rolling herself a couple joints, she searched for the nearest US consulate. She could try the embassy in Ottawa, but that was a four hour drive away on a good day, and she didn't even have a car. Travel by train would take about the same amount of time. Just for kicks, she also tapped the little walking man option, and learned that a hike from Toronto to Ottawa would take a little more than 3 days if she didn't take any breaks. She giggled at the little man's sudden rucksack and walking stick. 

A consulate would do just as well, though, so she looked for the nearest one while she drew a long breath of marijuana into her lungs.

Sure enough, there was a consulate in Toronto, and an easy bus ride away, at that. “Okey dokey,” she said, and giggled at the shapes the words formed in the smoke.

*

She woke up slowly on Sunday morning, her first morning back in the Rabbit Hole for this trip, and knew she was alone before even opening her eyes. Even perfectly still in sleep, Delphine's presence made itself known, with a gentle soft rattling deep in her sinuses or the tickling tendril of hair that always, always, no matter how much Delphine claimed she tried to tie it back, always managed to find its way into Cosima's nose in the night.

But not last night. Last night she slept on perfectly clean sheets, sheets Cosima had washed before leaving, the day after Clone Fest, after coaxing her beloved and residually baked Delphine off the bed and onto a chair long enough to change them. It was good practice to wash the sheets before leaving. No one wanted to come back exhausted to dirty sheets.

In the early morning gray, Cosima reached her hand over to Delphine's side of the bed, cringing at the cold sheets. Delphine wasn't here. She was in Iran, up and about already for seven hours or more, so her bed there was probably just as cold.

She texted Delphine a picture of the cold, bare expanse of bed. _Something's missing,_ she said. _I don't like it._

Waiting for Delphine to reply, she fished around in the bedside table drawer for the correct remote control, and turned on the largest of their space heaters. During the cold, lonely, miserable time here before they found Delphine and the cure, Cosima and Scott dubbed this space heater Bertha, but Hell Wizard liked to call it Old Rust Bucket. As it clattered and hummed to life, Cosima snuggled back under her blanket and turned back to face the space where Delphine wasn't.

They had woken up together here so many times she'd lost count, but what she remembered most was their first morning in this bed. The morning after Delphine came back from Geneva, after they'd finally gotten the chance to _talk_ to each other and just _be_ together. The morning before the art opening. The morning before Siobhan was shot.

Charlotte was with them then. She'd been asleep on Cosima's other side, sandwiching Cosima in the middle of a bed that had swallowed her night after night before that with its size and coldness.

And Delphine's hair fell over her face, and her lips were parted in sleep. She was on her side facing Cosima, with a hand in front of her face, between their pillows. Cosima watched her for a while, and then, unable to help herself, she'd reached over and pushed Delphine's hair back behind her ear.

Delphine twitched awake, soothed by the continuous caress of Cosima's fingers, and then she settled back into her pillow and took in Cosima's face with her eyes. Cosima smiled at her, always conscious of the sleeping child on her other side, and held Delphine's fingers in her own. They didn't speak, but they looked at each other, thinking the same wondrous, wonderful thoughts, until Charlotte stirred and they all got out of bed and started their day.

Vibration and the tinny sound of “Bohemian Rhapsody” broke Cosima out of her reverie. Swiping the green dot on her screen, she answered with, “Good morning, Alison.”

“Good morning, Cosima! I assume you don't have any plans today.”

That was a heck of way to greet someone, and rather suspicious. “Nope, not that I know of.”

“Well, we were hoping you could join us for the big meal today, then. It should be ready around one, and everyone else is coming. Sarah, Felix, the girls. You should come!”

“Big meal?” Cosima asked.

“The big Easter meal! You know, like we had last year.”

“Oh. Right.” Cosima checked the date and sighed. She'd forgotten that Easter was even a thing. While she thought about it, various clanks, whirrs, and creaks came from Alison's end, coupled with a few loud squelches. There would be a lot of food at this meal, and family togetherness, and no Delphine.

“Well?” Alison asked.

Cosima sighed. “Yeah, sure. I'll be there. Thanks.”

At Alison's house, almost everyone, including Helena, wore white or pastels. Oscar wore a new white suit and Gemma had a white Easter dress. Alison was all soft yellows and pinks. Felix wore white slacks and a baby blue polo shirt. Kira and Charlotte had the entire pastel color palette between them. Sarah, though, wore all black. 

“I don't own pastels,” Sarah said as Cosima looked her up and down. 

Herself clad in a slate gray top and dark brown pants, Cosima nodded. “I am not complaining. It's nice I'm not the only non-festive one.”

In the living room, the babies were holding themselves up on wobbly legs in the fenced-off play area and calling out various nonsense sounds. Delphine would have been cooing over them in French and tickling their bunny rabbit sweaters. Instead, Delphine was in Iran, accompanied by some Iranian woman, and wearing a fake wedding ring. Something else about their recent conversations bothered Cosima, but she couldn't put her finger on what it was. She crouched down to watch the babies, as though one of them would tell her.

“Did you cure the clones in Israel?”

Cosima turned to see Charlotte lingering in the doorway, her fingers linked in front of her pink Easter skirt. “I sure did,” Cosima told her.

“Sarah said you called everybody before you went there, to see if someone else could do it for you.”

“I did, yes.”

Now Charlotte squirmed some. “You didn't call me, though. I have a phone, too.”

Cosima smiled at her. “Yeah, I know you have a phone. Not much you could've done, though. Sorry.”

Charlotte opened her mouth with some kind of response, but Alison clapped her hands and gestured for everyone to gather for the meal. On the main table was Alison's collection of fine china and silver, a glistening ham surrounded by asparagus and pears, and various side dishes, including deviled eggs that were both more picturesque and far less appealing than the ones Delphine and the girls had made for Clone Fest. A second table nearby was set with regular, shatter-resistant dishes and stainless steel cutlery. That table was for Helena and the children. Cosima counted the chairs at the adult table and worried for a moment that there wasn't one for Delphine. 

_Tsch,_ she chided herself before anyone noticed. _You're slipping, Niehaus._

“It's so nice to have everyone together again,” Alison said to the room at large as she placed a basket of rolls on the table. “The whole family gathering under one roof.”

Cosima stared at her, glass of lemonade in one hand. “Nnn..?”

Felix coughed. “Alison?”

“Yes?”

“We're not all together,” Cosima said.

Stepping back towards the kitchen, Alison cocked her head and looked around at the assembled Sestras, children, and Felix. Donnie put his hands on Alison's shoulders and whispered into her ear, loudly enough that Cosima could also hear, “Delphine's not here, sweetheart.”

A small handful of reactions would have appropriate from Alison there, including embarrassment or an apology, but the one Alison went with was to turn to her husband and say, “I know that.”

Before Donnie could do any more intervention, Cosima put her glass down on the table with a heavy clunk. “Okay, seriously?” she said. “Delphine's not part of the family?”

“Don't be silly,” Alison said, “of course she is.”

“Then why did you say the whole family's here, when she obviously isn't?” For Cosima, the Delphine-shaped hole in her life was large enough to swallow the entire fucking house.

“I meant the immediate family,” Alison said, waving her hands in a circle. “You know, Art and Scott are part of the family, too, but not the immediate family. The Sestras family.”

“Which includes Donnie and Felix, but not my fiancée, who is going around the world curing _our_ sisters. Okay. Cool.” The emails Alison had sent about cutting back security, which Cosima had simply denied, loomed large in her mind, along with every single time Alison had suggested they just “travel separately” to cure the Ledas.

Sarah leaned against the doorframe. “What the hell, Alison?”

“Oh, for heaven's sake, I didn't mean it like that!” Alison took a bowl of pasta salad and carried it over to the dining room table. “I am not leaving Delphine out of anything!”

“Funny,” Felix remarked, “it sure sounds like you are.”

Cosima shook her head and walked out of the room to the sound of Alison calling “Cosima, wait!” to the coat closet where she had to dig through mounds of outerwear to reach her red wool coat and her purse. When she turned back around, Donnie Hendrix scared the shit out of her.

“Hey,” he said, holding his hands up in a gesture of vulnerability. “I just want you to know that we... that I don't feel that way. I don't feel like Delphine's separate, somehow. I'll talk to Alison about it, sometime when she's not surrounded by people. She's too defensive to talk to right now.”

“Yeah, that sounds like an Alison problem.”

“Right. But, it's just, for me... from me, I guess, Delphine's always been just as much a part of the family as Felix or anyone else. Just as much as I am. We're both monitors, right?” He gave her an embarrassed little smile.

“Yeah. Right.”

“Anyway. I don't blame you for leaving, but you should know, I wish she were here, too.”

“Right,” she repeated, not reminding him that for all of their platitudes about wanting Delphine there, not a single one of them had offered to go to Israel for them, to cure Avigail and enable Cosima to actually be with Delphine right now. That was in the past, and she'd resolved to think past that. 

Upstairs, while Cosima stood waiting for her Lyft to arrive, the children silently watched her, Felix's hands on Kira and Charlotte's shoulders to keep them from going over to Cosima. “She'll be alright,” he told them. “Sometimes people just need a little space. We'll catch up with her later, yeah?” And Cosima nodded, once, to agree.

Alison tried talking her out of leaving. Cosima ignored her for a minute, then turned and said, “What? The whole family should still be here after I've left, too.” When Alison's nostrils flared and she formed her mouth into a protest, Cosima pushed on. “You can have me with Delphine, or not at all. We're a package deal.”

Her phone dinged to announce that her driver was here, and she slung her purse over her shoulder.

“By the way, don't ever ask about cutting Delphine's security again, or I'll cut you from the Foundation all together, and out of my life, as well.”

* * *  
* * *

The US consulate in Toronto was busy on Monday morning, so Cosima positioned herself in the back of a long line of other US citizens with business to take care of. The man in front of her said that it was extra busy because Friday had been a national holiday.

She wracked her brain, remembering only that Sunday had been Easter. “It was?”

“Good Friday,” he explained.

The phrase clicked some fuzzy memory in her head. Something that might have related to ashes or fasting or possibly also neither of those things. At the counter thirty minutes later, Cosima smiled at the woman trying to help everyone. “Hi, I just need to renew my passport,” Cosima said. She had her old passport in hand, just in case.

“Okay. Is the old one still valid?”

“For most countries, yes.”

The woman, whose name plate read Zoe Appelbaum, paused in her mouse clicking. “What do you mean, for most countries?”

“I went to Israel,” Cosima said, “and they stamped it, and now a bunch of other countries won't let me in.”

“I see...” Zoe Appelbaum clearly did not see, but she resuming clicking her way through whatever service menu her computer gave her. “Do you need it to be expedited at all?”

“Yes, please. As expedited as possible.”

“Well.” Zoe said, turning from her computer screen and lacing her fingers together on the counter top. “Is is a life or death situation, or do you have urgent travel plans coming up?”

Cosima considered. Iran was not a terribly dangerous country, but she wasn't going to Iran, anyways, even with a valid passport, so she crossed that off of her mental list. Kuwait was “assessed to be a safe country” by whoever assessed that stuff, and Cosima felt like Turkey was no more dangerous than Mexico or half the other countries they'd been to. In reality, nothing would be “life or death” in any serious way until the second half of May, when Delphine went to Syria. And even that was a maybe in terms of danger. That could change, of course, if they got news of another clone with advanced symptoms.

“What counts as life or death?” she asked, out of curiosity.

“Well,” Zoe said again, “are you or a loved one on death's door, or recently deceased? And,” she added before Cosima could reply, “can you prove it?”

 _Not at the moment. Not this trip. Not that we know of._ To Zoe, she said, “Nope. 'fraid not.”

“Then it's not life or death. Do you have urgent travel plans?”

“Yes!”

“When are you traveling?”

“Well, I was supposed to be Iran right now, but – ”

Zoe shook her head. “No American citizens are permitted to enter Iran at this time. Sorry.”

“I know, I know. That's why I said supposed to be. Um. But I also have plans to go to Kuwait after that.”

“When?”

“Um...” Like a doofus, Cosima blanked on the actual arrival date for Kuwait, and guessed. “Late April.”

“What counts as late April?” Zoe watched Cosima fumble with her phone, and held her hand up to stop her. “Listen. If you're gonna be there more than two weeks in the future, come back then for the urgent travel expediting service. If the travel date is more than two weeks away, it's not considered urgent.”

“I need a visa, though, too. That takes time.”

“Okay. Well, in that case we can try to get you started now, but we can't make any promises. You'll need to make an appointment, though, and pay a $60 fine.”

“Sure. Great.”

“You can make the appointment online,” Zoe went on. “Just go to this link here – ” She pointed to a sign near her desk.

“Yeah, that link's broken.”

Zoe Appelbaum gave her a disbelieving look, but she typed some more at her computer, and then she said, “The soonest we can do for a passport renewal appointment is April 17th at 10:45 am. Does that work for you?”

“I...” That was in eleven days. “Does that include the visa appointment?”

“It says here that you can obtain a 3 month visa upon arrival in Kuwait. They'll give it to you at the airport, I assume.”

“Oh. Okay. Um. I also need visas for Turkey, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria.”

“Syria?” Ms. Appelbaum repeated, her face twisting in that familiar way that everyone's face did when Cosima mentioned that.

“Yeah. And both Syria and Lebanon are major pains in the ass as far as the visas are concerned.”

Zoe put her hands flat on the counter, grimacing at Cosima's choice of language. “When are you traveling to Syria and Lebanon?”

“In May, after Kuwait, Turkey, and Jordan.”

“Are you coming back at all during that time?”

“I hope not.”

Zoe puffed out her cheeks and typed away some more. “Well, Ms. Niehaus, I'm afraid the earliest appointment I can get you for expedited service is still April 17 at 10:45 am.”

Cosima sucked on the inside of her own mouth and took a deep breath. “At the appointment, will I get the passport that day?”

“No. They mail it to you.”

“So, the only difference is that I'm not sending my stuff through the mail. Just receiving it.”

Zoe held up her hands in a “there you go” gesture. “But for expediting, keep in mind you need proof of travel plans.”

Cosima tapped her current passport on the counter, quite aware of the line of other US citizens waiting behind her. In that kind of time, she could just do a regular passport renewal through the mail, postal strike or not. “Thank you for your time,” she told Zoe, and headed back home.

* * *

Early Tuesday morning. Cosima should have been writing up the conclusion for her dissertation draft, but instead she was perched on a lab stool, wearing pajamas pants and socks and nothing else, and eating cereal out of a stainless steel solution basin. She'd spent most of Monday gathering up all the required documents for passport renewal, and the whole packet had gone into the mail via FedEx at three in the afternoon, her still valid US passport included. She thought that was quite enough adulting for the time being, and her dissertation could just wait. Her laptop was on her counter, showing her personalized newsfeed.

“Secret Service Fires Two Over White House Fence Jumping Episode”

“Australia Seizes 903 kg of the Drug Ice under Residential Floorboards”

“Turkey Demands Extradition of Cleric, the US Refuses”

Cosima clicked on the third article. She had a vague idea of which cleric was being discussed, and why he was being held, but personally she had no opinion on the matter. Or, better said, she had many conflicting opinions on the matter, and she stayed mentally healthy by pushing them into a single “no opinion” box in her mind. Still, it involved Turkey, the one country in the “Middle East” she was still allowed to visit with her current passport, so she skimmed the article, pausing at pertinent points.

"Retaliation against the US has been promised," the article said. 

Cosima clucked her tongue. “Passive voice, yo. For fucking shame.”

She was still reading the article, trying to get a sense of what that retaliation might look like, when her brain registered the click of the lock at the top of the stairs. She'd barely hopped down from the stool and set the bowl on the counter when the door opened and Felix's voice carried down the steps.

“Rise and shine, sestra,” he said as he trounced down the steps and she grabbed the nearest garment to cover herself. “And really I don't care what you're wearing, either. I've seen it all before.”

Cosima stopped her frantic attempts to wrap herself in a robe. She let it hang from one shoulder, one and a half breasts exposed. “Hello, Felix. Please, make yourself at home.”

“Why, thank you.” Felix draped himself over one of the stylish armchairs and gave Cosima a good look. “Is that Delphine's robe, then? It's a bit long on you.”

She tied it around her waist and considered not answering him. He didn't need to know that she wore a lot of Delphine's clothes these days, in the privacy of this space. “It doesn't pack well in the suitcase,” she said, “so it kind of lives here.”

“How romantic.”

“Felix, what do you want?”

“Brunch. With you.”

“It's Tuesday.”

“And? People still eat brunch on Tuesday.” When she turned away from him, he amended it. “Okay, we can call it _late breakfast_ or _early lunch_ if you prefer, but it's the same thing.”

She got her phone from the bedside table and waved it at him. “Heard of a cell phone, dude? Text messaging? Calling? Fucking email? I have WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter, Line, Google chat... whatever your preference.”

“Yes, I am aware of how very well connected you are.”

“But you barged in unannounced anyway, didn't you?”

He gave an exasperated sigh and let his head roll back. “Cosima, Cosima, Cosima. Obviously you are still not familiar with my family and our very local customs. We do not call to announce we're coming over, we just fucking do it. It's how you know we love you.”

She discarded Delphine's robe, giving him the full view of her torso, and put her hands on her hips. “That's love, huh?”

“Yes, exactly. And besides, you haven't been answering anyone's messages, so I figured I wouldn't even bother.”

His casual self-satisfaction grated on her. “I could've been doing fucking anything down here. Did Hell Wizard buzz you down, or did you buzz yourself?”

His smile was definitively naughty. “Oh, I can only imagine the sorts of things a lonely little lesbian science geek gets up to on her own while her fiancée's far away. And I buzzed myself down, yes. Hell Wizard's busy with his customers.”

She grit her teeth and debated how angry to be with him. Nudity was not the issue. She'd been naked in front of more people than she could count, in various saunas, nudist colonies, and other hippie-friendly locales, and he was right that he'd seen it all before, on her and Sarah. Even if he'd walked in on her masturbating, it only would have been a huge issue for her if she'd been close to finishing. Other people had walked in on her doing that before, and she'd survived the humiliation just fine.

If he walked in on Delphine, however, his head would have fucking rolled.

*

The restaurant he took her to was downtown, and the style made her feel like she should have been wearing something else entirely, maybe some artful ensemble crafted by a designer with several silent letters in their name.

Felix didn't come out with his real purpose until they'd ordered – tofu omelette with black beans and salsa for her, crispy quinoa cakes with goat cheese for him. “I have a proposition,” he said, his tone of voice matching the restaurant's high style. “That will not sooth all current wounds, but may solve one or two problems.”

She arched an eyebrow. “A proposition? Okay,” she said.

“As you may know, I'm in a bit of a transitional period at the moment.” He stirred his coffee and let that thought linger in the air along with the other patrons' conversations about publishing rights and stock options. Cosima let it linger, too. She had all fucking day for this. “My gallery show has wrapped,” he went on eventually. “I'm between relationships. My client list was rather, ehm, disrupted by my relationship with Colin, as well.”

“So you're broken up for good, then?” Cosima asked.

“Depends on your definition of good, really, but for the moment, yes.”

“Sorry to hear that.” She meant it, too.

He shrugged and tossed his hair. “Thank you, but that's not my main point, actually. My main point is, I have a lot of extra time on my hands, and I have some ideas of how that extra time could be put to good use.”

That thought lingered, too, but this time it annoyed her. “Are you tell me what it is, then?”

He pouted and rolled his eyes. “Have a bit of taste for the dramatic, can't you? Fine. What I'm suggesting is that I go over to the Sandy Armpits of the World and accompany your lovely fiancée as she cures all of those sestras in places you're not allowed to go to because you fucked up your entry into Israel.”

“Fucked up?” Cosima leaned over the table. “Seriously?”

“Your words, darling, not mine. I wasn't there.”

Her brief anger deflated like a balloon. She had said that, and meant it, hadn't she? Now the balloon shell of her anger flopped around with nowhere to go. “Sandy Armpits is a bit of a stretch,” she muttered. “Some parts are pretty cool.”

“I'm sure they are, like all the places that hang men for having sex with each other, but that's sort of beside the point right now. The point is, Delphine is there all by herself, not including those probably dashing bodyguards you hired, and everyone, and I mean everyone, knows that safety comes in numbers. Numbers that you've met before arriving in country.”

Cosima leaned back into her wicker chair and tried to imagine Felix in the Middle East, and all she could think of was the story Art told them once about Felix coming to his door dressed in a bad Sherlock Holmes cosplay. “I mean, it's sweet of you to offer,” she said, “but I'm not sure how much you could help.”

“About as much as you could, I expect. With the safety, I mean. I'm not offering to fulfill any of Delphine's other, ehm, needs.”

Cosima burst out laughing at that. “That's good! I wasn't too worried about that, actually.”

The waitress came with their food, and they spent a few minutes attacking that before continuing the conversation. Cosima's omelette was tasty, and massively improved by a half cup or so of Frank's Red Hot.

After eating about a third of his quinoa cake, Felix spoke again. “I had a client last year from Iran. This soulful, scrumptious fellow; he'd been a wrestler for the Olympic team back in 2012, actually. Married, of course, as many of my clients are.” Felix took another bite and let that thought linger now.

It was an interesting side note, the sort Cosima was used to now. When they were in Panama, Donnie told them about coworker from Panama. When they were in Peru, Kira told them about her classmate from Lima. Her parents told them about their colleague from Algeria. And then, of course, Alison had told them about that “nice Jewish family down the street” who'd been to Israel that one time. “Does he have any tips?” Cosima asked Felix.

“Actually, he does. I told him a bit about your trip last year. No details, not the reason or anything, but it just sort of came up, right?”

“Sure, whatever.”

“He suggests, quite strongly suggests, actually, that a woman have a husband – ” he put air quotes around the word “ – when traveling in Iran. He didn't know too much about other countries close by, but he suspected it was similar.”

Cosima remembered the little silver band Delphine now wore on her left ring finger, and felt acid rising in her stomach. “A husband?” she repeated.

“A “husband.” It doesn't matter if it's real or not, it just needs to look that way from the outside. His wife, as it turns out, is gayer a lamppost at Mardi Gras, just like he is, and she has a long term girlfriend. But for all intents and purposes, they're married, and thus, no one gives them too much shit about it.”

“Yeah, we've heard similar things. Delphine even went out and got a fake ring so it looks like she's married.”

That threw Felix for a loop. “Oh? First I've heard of that.”

“We don't tell you everything.”

“Clearly. I don't suppose she's got a man on her arm to complete the picture, does she?”

Cosima _really_ didn't want to picture that. “No.”

“Well, Erfan, my client, did say that it's best to have an actual, living breathing person to play the part. And, in a woman's situation, to keep men from getting close enough to see the ring in the first place.”

Cosima did some simple connect the dots in her mind. “So let me get this straight – ” She ignored Felix's little scoff at the word choice, “You're offering to go to Iran, and possibly also these other countries, to pretend to be Delphine's “husband” so that, what? She doesn't live there. She's not staying in one city for long enough to get to know anybody.”

“True.” He took a dainty sip of coffee. “I also recall hearing a story about some fellow on a bus in Morocco, or Tunisia, or wherever, who wouldn't take no for an answer. Or was Art exaggerating that one when he relayed it to me?”

Oh right, that guy. Delphine had told Art about it over the phone the night it happened, as part of a routine check in call. “When that guy was messing with Delphine, I was there. I helped scare him off.”

“Did you? From what Art told me, it sounds like it was Delphine's knife that scared him off.”

“Well, yeah, of course he said that. He's the one that gave her the knife.”

“Regardless, having another person by her side helps, and I think we all agree on that, yes?”

“Yes. Of course.”

“And that person cannot be you at the moment, tragically and heart-breakingly, so another person ought to step in and fill that role. And, if nothing else, it will assure Alison that all that money she'd earmarked for you is going to good use. But mostly I'm going for you and Delphine. That's all I'm offering.”

It was a good idea. A thoughtful, brave, considerate, loving idea. And Cosima hated it. No matter how sensible it seemed, Cosima didn't want him or anyone else to go and help. She didn't want someone else tagging along with Delphine, seeing Delphine casually perusing the wares at a market, watching Delphine as she dozed on a bus, checking into hotels with Delphine, fetching her tea when her throat was sore. 

Delphine and Felix would probably get one bed to share everywhere they went, without even asking.

“She drools,” Cosima told him. “And she steals the covers.”

Felix smiled. “Funny, she says the same thing about you, except instead of drooling, you talk in your sleep. Like I said, don't worry. I am not out to steal your woman. That is the last thing I want to do. I just want to help.”

It would help, too. Often, just having a second pair of eyes was helpful, or having someone to run errands while Delphine was dealing with a clinic or a difficult patient, but at times, a second person was also critical in locating the Leda or, as they'd already said, fending off danger. Cosima fiddled with her napkin. “Getting yourself a visa to visit Iran is gonna take a while. You know that, right?”

Now he hesitated. “How much of a while?”

“Well, I've heard rumors of people getting one in a week or two, but that's the exception. Remember how we were here for, like, a month back in January? That's why. We were going to the embassies and dealing with all the bureaucratic bullshit with getting our visas for all these countries.” She sipped her mimosa, pleased to have one-upped him for the moment. “Gotta have a tour guide lined up, too, but we could set you up with ours.”

“A tour guide?” Felix said, with the same expression he reserved for words like suburbia, department stores, and Vera Bradley. Then he scoffed. “God lord, no wonder Alison fusses so much over your finances, if you're hiring tour guides everywhere you go.”

“Not everywhere,” she corrected. “Just Iran. Americans and Canadians aren't allowed to enter Iran at all without having a pre-approved tour guide. Well, Americans aren't allowed in, period, but that doesn't apply to you. Anyway, like I said, it's a pain in the ass.” When Felix squirmed like he was looking for a retort, a hot little burst of frustration popped into her abdomen. “Look, there's a reason I haven't just gotten a new passport at the passport store and hustled back over there. This shit takes time. By the time I get my ducks back in a row, Delphine will have cured all the Iranians and moved on to Kuwait or Turkey.”

“Well, then.” He looked down into his own mimosa and stuck his jaw to one side.

“Thanks for the offer, though, seriously.” She put her hand over his. “It means a lot to me.”

He smiled at her. “I'm always happy to help. Most of us in Clone Club value Delphine far more than Alison would have you believe.”

“Mmm.” Cosima rested her chin in both hands. “Come a long way from stupid needy bitch, then, hasn't she?”

“Quite a long way, I'd say. More than proven herself, and then some.”

* * *

On Wednesday evening, Sarah invited her over for a little “Alison-free family time.” Helena and the boys were there, though, and Donnie.

“We don't quite trust Helena to drive herself or the boys anywhere,” Donnie explained while Helena was in the kitchen with Sarah. “But she still wants to see Sarah, of course, so I drive her.”

“Gotcha.”

He picked at the label on the bottle of orange soda in his hand and looked down. “I'm still talking to Alison,” he said, “about what she said. To be honest, I think she's just a little weirded out but what happened at the party. That's all. She likes Delphine just as much as the rest of us do, she just... processes emotions a little differently.”

Cosima narrowed her eyes. “Party? You mean, the pool party? That was two weeks ago. More than two weeks ago.”

Sarah came back to overhear the last part of what Donnie said, and laughed. “Alison was weirded out? Seriously?”

Donnie wasn't sure what to say to that, but Helena stepped in, a one-year-old on each hip, and nudged Cosima with her shoulder. “You make good sex, I think, Sestra. Doctor Delphine was very happy at party.”

“Uhh...” 

Sarah laughed so hard so fell sideways against the wall. “What the hell, meathead? Nobody else was gonna say anything, but you had to say summit, didn't you?”

Helena shrugged, utterly unrepentant. Cosima didn't know what to say. She considered herself pretty open to talking about sex with others, but remembering how loud Delphine had been, how effusively affectionate, and how willing to fuck Cosima in front of everybody, Cosima blushed hot and ducked her head. 

At least Kira and Charlotte were in the front yard, out of earshot.

“It's just,” Donnie plowed forward, also pink in the face, “It's just that, before Sunday, Alison hadn't seen you since the party, so I think it was just extra fresh in her mind.”

“And she's jealous,” Sarah added. “You ever make her scream like that?”

Donnie shifted, face now matching Cosima's coat. “I... I mean, I... that's not the point, you know?”

Sarah nodded. “So that's a no, then?”

“I didn't say that! I... I might have... but... it's just...”

“But you've got kids now,” Sarah filled in. “So it's a bit harder, yeah?”

“Harder.” Now Donnie blushed. “Yeah. Right.”


	5. Chapter 5

“Delphine, please.”

She turned and met Kimia's gaze with a bit of a challenge. They'd been traveling together for a week now, from Tehran to Mashhad to Zahedan and now Kerman, a city in south-central Iran known for its Zoroastrian fire temples. Early in the week, Kimia had made little comments about Delphine's ongoing limp, but after a few days she seemed to have given up, resigned to Delphine's stubbornness or not wanting to annoy her. Until today, when Delphine stumbled on the steps down from the hospital and swore so loudly it was lucky she did it in French.

“What?” she demanded.

“You have health and travel insurance,” Kimia said, “for what, exactly? Does it just sit in your wallet and look pretty to the inside of your purse?”

Delphine nearly called her a brat, and caught herself just in time. Kimia might be cheeky enough to give Cosima a run for her money, but she was _not_ Cosima. “The insurance is for emergencies,” she said.

“You can barely walk.” Kimia followed Delphine's slow progress down the the rest of the stairs, which was more hopping than walking. “What counts for you as an emergency, then?”

Delphine didn't answer that. She was fairly certain by now that her kneecap was fractured, rather than merely bruised, but she doubted the fracture was serious. When she (painfully, excruciatingly) probed the area, nothing felt out of place, so the patella was still in one piece. No surgery would be required. The most a doctor could do, then, would be show her an x-ray image and tell her to wear a brace.

_And give me more painkillers. Possibly better painkillers._

That thought, more than any other, drew her to Kimia's argument. The pain in her knee should have been abating by now, but instead, it had increased. It woke her up from nightmares and influenced every decision she made, from what to wear to whether and when to use the bathroom. She'd treated today's Leda clone sitting down; she'd stood for almost everyone else.

“Hey.” Kimia came around to face her at the bottom of the steps. “I know that it's not my place to tell you what to do, but I think that now we are friends, yes?”

“Something like that,” Delphine said. Spending hours upon hours in transit or in a car with someone, eating meals with them on the road, and navigating various small dramas in a foreign country either made a person a friend or an enemy, and Kimia was definitely a friend. The word felt loaded, though, too intimate for a hired guide and translator even if was otherwise appropriate. And that was ignoring all the times Delphine had nearly slipped and called her “Cosima.”

“You are going the wrong direction,” Kimia said. “Go back inside. Be a patient this time, okay?”

Delphine let out a slow breath. “It's not _my_ insurance,” she said, as much to herself as to Kimia, “it's the Foundation's insurance. They would get the invoice.”

“Okay, so?”

 _So then they'll ask me why I got an x-ray in Iran, and then they'll hear about what happened in Basra, and then..._ She bit her lip.

Kimia put a hand on her arm. “Why is that bad? What's wrong?”

She sighed just as another spasm of pain shot up her leg. _What's wrong is Cosima doesn't know. And I was hoping that she never would._

Their taxi pulled up and honked a few times, and they climbed in. Folding herself into the back seat, Delphine bit her lip to keep from groaning or swearing again as her leg bent. “Okay, fine. Tomorrow,” she told Kimia. “If it still hurts tomorrow, I'll go.”

*

That evening, she lay in bed with more ice on her knee, and Cosima's face on her laptop screen.

“I'm sorry, did you say Felix wants to come and be my husband?”

“Your fake husband,” Cosima was quick to clarify. “To go with your fake wedding ring.”

Felix in Iran was an interesting mental image. Kimia would love him – she had gay male friends, as it turned out, though that fact was not enough for Delphine to come out to her. She told Cosima as much, and Cosima paused.

“Do you ever think she suspects?”

“I have no idea. It's never come up. She's never asked about my relationships, except the first day, when I told her I wasn't married.”

“Not married yet,” Cosima amended.

“Of course. Not married yet. I didn't tell her that part, though.”

Cosima rested her chin on her hand and pouted. “I miss you.”

“I miss you too, every single day. I want to tell Kimia about you, far more than I actually do.”

“You spend a lot of time with her.”

The sentence's tone was neutral, as was Cosima's face, but Delphine learned a long time ago that Cosima didn't do neutral. “Yes, I do,” she told her. “If you were here, you would too. It's the nature of travel in Iran.”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

Delphine clicked her tongue and adjusted her position on the bed. The mattress was quite firm, and sitting on it like this made her ass fall asleep. As she shifted, though, the ice bag on her knee slipped. “Hang on,” she told Cosima as she leaned forward to fix that. When she got back in position, Cosima's eyes narrowed.

“Are you okay?”

“It's just hard to get comfortable.” She smiled at her beloved. “I'm okay, yes.”

*

In the morning, Delphine was still in bed when Kimia knocked on the door. Delphine had woken from another nightmare, the third one that week. In this one, the earth had crumbled away beneath her, swallowing up entire cities of Leda clones, and while Delphine threw herself on the ground to catch Cosima's falling fingers, it was no use. She could still taste bloody dirt in her mouth, and even the logical part of her brain struggled to understand that it hadn't been real.

Kimia knocked again. “Delphine?”

With great effort, she pulled herself out of bed, put on a t-shirt, and limped over to open the door. “What?”

Kimia looked down at Delphine's legs, clad in shorts and the ever-present elastic bandage. “It still hurts, doesn't it?”

That was a bit of an understatement at the moment. Delphine leaned against the doorframe to take all her weight off her right leg. “Yes,” she said.

“Can we see a doctor now, then?”

“We?”

“I have to go with you.” When Delphine opened her mouth to protest, Kimia held up a hand. “You need a translator. Remember the doctor yesterday?”

She did. The doctor who'd set them up with the exam room and arranged the Leda's appointment swore he spoke excellent English. The nurses also assured them that he was fluent. “He sounds like a native,” they told Delphine. The only native he sounded like, though, was a native Iranian, and after several minutes attempting communication, Kimia graciously suggested switching over to Persian so she could just translate.

Thirty minutes after getting out of bed, Delphine sat in a taxi, clothed in an easy-to-wear skirt, blouse, sandals, and head scarf, as Kimia told the driver where to take them. As they got on the main road, Kimia smiled at her. “You'll be better soon. And you'll be glad you went.”

“Hm.” Delphine stared at the city going by. She had to call Cosima. She had to tell her about the hospital visit, about her knee, and about how she'd injured it. She could have, should have told Cosima last night when Cosima asked if she was okay. There was no avoiding it now, and she shouldn't have avoided it in the first place. _Stupid girl,_ she chided herself.

At the hospital, Kimia handled all of the check-in materials. It was part of her job, after all, not only to translate but to smooth cultural rough spots. She also handled all transportation issues, many interactions with the Persian-speaking Ledas, and most issues with the hotels, all with Delphine's full participation and consent. She was like Cosima that way, always insisting on consent and communication. Had she not, Delphine might have asked for different tour guide.

_Speaking of communication..._

Delphine looked down at her phone, thumb hovering over Cosima's name without touching it. It was three o'clock in the morning in Toronto right now. Cosima might have been awake, but if she was, she probably wasn't in a position to have a serious conversation.

“We have to wait,” Kimia said when she got back to their seats after checking Delphine in. “There are too many patients before you, so it could be a long time.”

“A long time” stretched out into an hour, and then two hours. Kimia went and got them both snacks from the little hospital canteen, and she talked when Delphine seemed up for it, to pass the time. The waiting room was quieter than most that Delphine had been in, with no music or television, and the other patients kept quietly to themselves.

“Can I ask a question about your patients?” Kimia asked.

“My patients?” Delphine asked.

“Yes. They all look the same. I mean, you told me they would, I remember that, but they are really very, very similar. But they are not related?”

“Not that they know of,” Delphine confirmed.

“Not that they know of – so they are related.”

“In a manner of speaking. They're not members of the same family, they do not have the same parents or grandparents.”

“You said it's their genes... I mean, obviously it's genes, everything is in our genes, I know, but... are there five other women out there who look so very similar to me? Or to you?”

Delphine had imagined herself as a clone before, and always been thankful that she wasn't one. She was critical enough of her own appearance without seeing her flaws mirrored in someone else. “No, I don't think so. If so, I haven't heard about it.”

“How did you hear about these women, then?”

“It's a long story.”

Kimia laughed. “We have a lot of time, though.”

“Not enough time for that, we don't.”

“Uhhh...” Kimia's eyes widened. “We have three days with nothing to do and nowhere to go. That's a lot of time, I think. Or maybe you just don't want to tell me.”

Delphine clicked her tongue and smiled at her. “That could be it, yes.”

When they'd been waiting for more than two hours, Delphine's phone rang, making her jump. Seeing Cosima's name on the screen confused her even more. It was just after five in Toronto, and Cosima was not a morning person.

“Your partner?” Kimia asked.

Nodding, Delphine answered. “Cosima? Are you okay?”

On the other end, Cosima giggled, “Are you that surprised that I'm awake this early?”

“Yes, actually.”

“Yeah, it's not really by choice. I'm still a little bit jet lagged, and something I ate turned violently against me in the night. Might’ve been the potato salad Helena dug out of the back of Sarah’s fridge and split with me. Anyway, I've been up for a few hours.”

“Oh?” Beside her, Kimia did poor job of pretending not to eavesdrop, so Delphine didn't ask why Cosima would eat something like in the first place. “Actually, can I – ” A loudspeaker announcement interrupted her, and she winced. “Can I call you back later? You're feeling better now, yes?”

“Yeah, I'm mostly better, now that my stomach's completely evacuated itself. Where are you right now?”

“I'm at the hospital in Kerman.”

“The hospital? Didn't you do the treatment yesterday?”

“Delpein Cor-meer?”

Kimia nudged her as though Delphine hadn't heard enough butcherings of her own name to recognize it. “I have to call you back,” she told Cosima. Normally, she would have ended with “I love you,” even if she were rushed, but Kimia was watching, and Kimia didn't know. With a kick to her own heart, Delphine said “bye” and hung up. Mentally, she begged Cosima to understand and promised days and days of flowers and chocolate and massages and whatever kinds of sex Cosima was up for for as long as Cosima was up for it. Which, actually, Delphine kind of planned on doing anyway, as soon as they were back together again.

The nurse led them back down an antiseptic-scented hallway to a curtained-off space with an adjustable bed, a desk with a computer, and a plastic chair. Delphine hoisted herself up onto the bed without assistance and Kimia stood on the side opposite the nurse, her finger tips resting on the bed by Delphine's arm. There was the usual explanation of who Kimia was and why she was there – Delphine had heard it enough times by now to get the gist even without knowing Persian – and then a standard recitation of patient information, and then Delphine said what had happened, with Kimia translating. The nurse nodded along and took notes, and her next sentence was perfectly clear in any language to anyone who'd spent much time in hospitals - “The doctor will be with you shortly.”

After the nurse left, Kimia smiled down at Delphine. “More waiting.”

“Of course. And you wonder why I didn't go to the hospital before.”

“Better today than tomorrow. Tomorrow's the holiday. And better here than other hospitals, I think.”

Delphine had no response for that. She propped herself up in the bed and checked her phone as Kimia walked around the bed and sat on the chair. There were two new texts from Cosima.

_Are you okay???_

_Call me as soon as you can, okay? Text if you can't call._

Cosima was worried now – just the outcome Delphine had tried so hard to avoid. _I will,_ she replied. _Don't worry._

She stared up at the ceiling for a while, listening to the ambient hospital sounds all around and imagining what Cosima was doing. Of course, if Cosima were here, she'd be sitting right next to her, holding her hand, telling her silly stories and bad jokes. All the things she'd done in Costa Rica when Delphine was sick with some intestinal parasite. The same kinds of things Delphine had done for Cosima when Cosima was sick. If Cosima were here, it would be difficult indeed to withhold physical affection even when the doctors, nurses, or Kimia were present. If Cosima were here, traveling everywhere with Delphine, Kimia would have figured it out by now.

Kimia suggested various games or cell phone videos to pass the time and distract her, but Delphine shook her head, lost in thought. Cosima had spent so much time waiting for doctors, waiting for blood work, waiting for tests. Often, she'd been stuck in one place without waiting for anything; Dyad just wanted to observe her. It was a wonder she hadn't gone insane.

And now, it was Delphine who waited for doctors while Cosima sat by her phone, waiting for Delphine to call.

Delphine could have limped out of the room to call her, or she could have asked Kimia to leave for a while, but the doctor might come in then, and she couldn't risk cutting this conversation with Cosima short.

She did her daily social media checks of the Ledas. She checked every email address, every bank and credit card balance, every news source she cared about. When she had exhausted the internet, she rubbed her face, yawned, and dropped her phone back in her purse.  
“Do you have to do this a lot,” Delphine asked, “with clients?”

Kimia smiled. “Take them to the hospital? No, not often. It's not the first time, though.”

“What was the first time?”

“I was with a British couple a few years ago, a man and his wife, going up a mountain, and the man decided he knew what to do with donkeys.”

That presented a delightful mental image. “He learned his lesson, then?”

“Oh, yes.” Kimia's smile widened, dimpling both of her cheeks. “But I think he will never have children.”

Delphine was still giggling when the doctor pulled back the curtain and greeted her. “Bonjour, Docteur Cormier!” he said, voice booming. “Je suis Docteur Zouravand. Comment ça va?”

Delphine sat up, her amusement falling away. She hadn't expected French, even as heavily accented as this. A look at Kimia's face said that she hadn't either – Kimia could not help at all with a conversation in French. “Euh, bien,” Delphine said.

“Bien?” The doctor looked over his chart. “Ton genou est bien?”

 _Ton?_ Delphine tried to swing both legs over the side of the table to face him, but her right leg refused, and she winced.

“Ah ha,” the doctor said. “Sur le table, s'il vous plaît.”

At least now he had the pronoun right, even if he probably had no idea, but the command was misgendered and nonsensical – it was more a bed than a table and she was already on it. She lay back down. “Do you speak English, doctor?” she asked.

“Eh, a little bit.” He laughed and did that little hand gesture everyone does when asked if they speak a language and they really don't.

“I would prefer English if you're competent,” Delphine said, glancing at Kimia, who had moved to position herself next to Delphine. “If you're not, I prefer Persian, and Ms. Rajabi can translate for us.”

Dr. Zouravand's face was an interesting study in emotion. More than likely, few if any patients or women talked to him that way. After a moment, though, he shrugged, said something in Persian, and went back to the clipboard in his hand.

“Whatever you want,” Kimia translated, her fingers resting on the bed an inch or so from Delphine's shoulder.

There was the another repetition of Delphine's information – date of birth, country of origin, lack of any major allergies, marital status (single, of course), an assurance that she was not pregnant, and her reason for being at the hospital. Then Dr. Zouravand flipped the papers over and put the clipboard on the empty chair. He pulled on some gloves and said he wanted to look at her knee.

“Lift your skirt please,” Kimia translated.

Delphine did so, pulling the fabric up just above the knee on her right leg. When she unwound the elastic bandage, the doctor whistled at the multicolored bruises. He gently palpated the area around the knee cap, pushing her skirt up a little more as he did so. He asked her to bend her knee, which she did with great difficulty. Then he put his thumb on her knee cap and she gasped.

Dr. Zouravand laughed softly. “That hurts?” Kimia translated, and even through the curtain of pain Delphine saw the disdain on Kimia's face when she looked at him.

“Oui, putain de merde, ça fait mal!”

Kimia put her hand on Delphine's shoulder and smiled. “I can't translate that.”

Delphine squirmed to get away from both of them touching her. “It means fuck. You can translate that.”

“Is okay,” Dr. Zouravand said. “Je comprends.” He removed his gloves and made some notes, then stepped out and called to someone.

“They're bringing you a wheelchair,” Kimia said.

“I can walk!”

Soon, though, Delphine had three Iranians – the translator, the doctor, and the nurse – insisting that she should not walk, and urging her to just get in the damn wheelchair so they could take her to radiology and get an x-ray done.

“Fine,” she said eventually, but she refused to let anyone help her into it.

The trip to radiology was as humbling as expected. She wasn't used to seeing so many people from a foot below their eyes or having no control over the direction her body took.

 _Cosima hated wheelchairs,_ she remembered, _even more than she hated blood work or MRIs. She would have rather crawled than be pushed around._

The x-ray went smoothly, no better or worse than any other x-rays Delphine had gone through, and then a much shorter wait in the room. She had only just gotten herself back on the bed when Dr. Zouravand returned with CD in a paper sleeve.

“Okay, Docteur Cormier,” he said, and inserted the CD in the computer in the corner of the room. Once he pulled the images of her knee up on the screen, they made sense to her, even as Kimia did her best to translate a medical language she rarely used.

“A stable transverse fracture,” Delphine said, the medical translation of Kimia's valiant attempt of “it's broken sideways but it's not falling apart.”

Dr. Zouravand smiled at her. “Oui.”

As expected, she did not need surgery, but she got a better knee brace and a little bag of medicine from the pharmacy – more paracetamol, plus tramadol, ketoprofene, and omeprazole.

“You can take them now,” Kimia suggested, offering a bottle of water while they waited for the taxi ride back. “So they start working by the time we get back to the hotel.”

She took three of them, saving the tramadol for after her conversation with Cosima. She really needed to be alert for that one.

*

Back at the hotel room, alone for the first time since she'd gotten out of bed that morning, Delphine sank into the cushy desk chair that faced her laptop. She imagined a reversed reality. If she had heard that Cosima was in the hospital for no clear reason, and then Cosima failed to call her back for several hours, Delphine would have been beside herself. Of course, that had never happened. Since they'd met, every time Cosima had been hospitalized, or even seen a routine physician, Delphine had known about it. Most of the time she'd been right by her side.

She opened Skype on her computer. Cosima's name was “available,” and likely had been all day. She took a deep breath, and dialed.

“Hey!” Cosima's smile lit up the screen and Delphine's entire life. “Are you – you look like you're back in your room, okay. Are you okay? What happened?”

Another deep breath. “I, euh, I had to see a doctor.”

Cosima's smile faded into wide-eyed concern.

“I hurt my knee, ehm, several days ago, and it, it wasn't healing like it should, so I saw a doctor and got an x-ray.”

Cosima leaned forward so Delphine saw each individual little hair that was too short to go in her dreadlocks. “Several days ago? What happened?”

She had to tell the whole truth now. She should have in the first place, and now they were both paying the price for her not doing that. “Do you remember those protests in Basra? You sent me a link about them.”

“Yes....”

“I got sort of swept up in part of that, completely by accident. I didn't know they would be happening, but then, as I was leaving after treating the patient, it just sort of happened all around me and then it was too difficult to leave.”

Cosima's mouth hung half open. Delphine went on.

“So, there was a little bit of chaos, I don't know why, and I fell down, and I hurt my knee. The security team got me out, of course.”

When Cosima spoke again, her voice was half an octave lower than usual. “Why the shit did they let that happen in the first place? You shouldn't have been anywhere near those protests.”

Delphine rubbed her forehead. For her, that question and all the other whys of the situation were just as well left unanswered. “I don't know.”

“You could've been – ” Cosima held a hand to her mouth and looked around, silent for a moment. She was in the lab part of the the unit under the Rabbit Hole. A screen behind her showed an Excel spreadsheet. Taking a deep breath, she went on. “Why didn't you tell me before? I've talked to you since then, several times, and you didn't say anything about it.”

And there it was – the question she'd once promised herself to never make Cosima ask ever again. “I didn't want you to worry.”

The concern and confusion on Cosima's face stayed, but they were joined by an anger that Delphine had not seen in a very long time. “Delphine,” Cosima said, and her voice broke. She tried again, plowing through the emotions, “Delphine, you could have been killed. You don't think I might want to know about that? You don't think that might concern me?”

Tears threatened in Delphine's eyes the second Cosima's voice cracked, tears born from a week of pain, a day of boredom and annoyance, and far too long without Cosima in her arms. Cosima should have been with her at the hospital. She should have been the one suggesting activities to pass the time, and she should have been the one with her hand on Delphine's shoulder as Dr. Zouravand fondled her kneecap. Cosima should have been the one at the jewelry store in Tehran, picking out the ring that would convince people she was married. And Cosima should have been here now, so they could talk face to face. “I'm sorry,” Delphine managed. “You're worried already, and...”

“Yes, I am!” Tears spilled out of Cosima's eyes, too, which just pushed Delphine over the edge into crying, too. “I am worried every single day that something might happen to you, that there might be some terrorist attack, or the police will decide to lock up all the Westerners, or some guy's not gonna be so afraid of your little knife! I don't want to also have to worry that you're not telling me shit!”

Delphine's shoulders shook as she tried, at least, not to cry too dramatically. “I know,” she said.

“Why? Why didn't you tell me? You don't want me to worry, like, what, I can't handle worrying?”

“No, no, that's not it.”

“So what, then? Talk to me, for fuck's sake, tell me what's going on in your head.”

Delphine closed her eyes. After she'd gotten back from Geneva last year, she and Cosima had talked endlessly, with precise intention, trust, and humility. They'd cried a lot, but they'd had each other to cry on, and Delphine had admitted plenty of things she wasn't proud of. Why couldn't she do that now?

“At the protest,” Delphine said, “I wasn't very – .” She stopped and started again. “A lot of other people were hurt. And I had my bag, of course.” She opened her eyes and saw Cosima watching with rapt attention.

“Yeah?”

“Cosima, I'm a doctor. When people are hurt, I should help them if I can. You would have.”

Cosima cocked her head. “What makes you say that?”

“Because I know you. If you see someone hurting, genuinely hurting, your first instinct is to help them, to make them feel better however you can. Do you remember that little boy in Oran?”

“No?”

“We were running to get to the bus on time, and a little boy on the sidewalk fell off his scooter and scraped his elbows.”

“Okay, that sounds kinda familiar.”

Delphine went on, still crying a little. “And we were late, but you stopped to help him up and make sure he was okay. And I wanted to be angry with you, but you were so sweet with him that I couldn't be. That's what you do, that's why I love you so much, but I'm not like that.”

“Delphine...”

“It's not that I think I should have stayed, or fought off the security team when they got me out. I'm realistic, you know. It's just... I was scared, okay? And then I thought of you, and what you would have done, and how you should've been there with me, but then I thought that you would have gotten hurt, and...” She shook her head. “And it was easier to pretend that it didn't happen at all.”

Cosima watched her with two fingers pressed against her lips. Her eyes were pink and wet, and if there weren't a computer screen, an ocean, and several countries between them, Delphine would have kissed them both and then kissed Cosima's sweet mouth until she knew how sorry Delphine was. Instead, she had to make do with words.

“I didn't want – ” she began, and then stopped. It was a stupid thought.

“What?” Cosima asked. “What didn't you want?”

“I didn't want you to think that I was weak.” Now that she'd said it, it sounded even more idiotic than it had in her head. She laughed at herself and looked down at her hands, and over to the bottles of prescription medication on the desk beside her.

“Seriously?”

“Unfortunately, yes.”

For a long moment, Cosima watched Delphine trying not to cry again. Then, softly, Cosima asked, “Why would I think you were weak? Why would I ever think that?”

Delphine closed her eyes and thought of all the answers she could give.

_Because I broke a vial of your cure and it made me cry._

_Because I curled up like an insect when I heard loud noises instead of keeping my head together._

_Because I'm still afraid of being shot again._

_Because men had to come and save me while I was curled up like an insect._

_Because I was too afraid to tell you what happened._

“Hey...”

She opened her eyes. Cosima was even closer to the camera, her eyebrows tucked together. Delphine smiled. It was the least, or the most, that she could do. “Hey.”

“Delphine, you're the strongest person I know, okay? You're strongest person I've ever met. Wha – Why?”

God, she missed Cosima's compliments. “I would like for you to keep thinking of me that way. I was not very strong that day, though.” She shook her head. “I was terrified, and I shouldn't have been.”

Cosima reached out a hand that would have brushed back Delphine's hair, or stroked her face, in person. “It's okay to be scared. You do know that, right?”

“But I wasn't scared for anyone else, not while it was happening. I mean, later, I was, I was afraid of what might have happened to you, but during the protest I wasn't. I was just scared for myself, afraid of what might happen to _me._ ” She held a hand to her chest for emphasis. Of course she'd been scared before – she'd spent over a year terrified of losing Cosima – but that fear had compelled action, action on Cosima's behalf even if was at times misguided. The only action compelled by her fear in Basra was curling up in a ball and getting away.

“Well,” Cosima said, a tiny smile peeking out again, “ _you_ are pretty fucking important, so it's okay to be afraid on your own behalf. Plus, not to be, like, captain obvious or anything, but, you have been shot at before – and by shot at I mean you've been fucking _shot_ before. You're allowed to be scared of getting hurt again.”

“I'll take your word for it.”

“You'd better.” Cosima settled back onto her stool, her face calmer. “Thanks for telling me, though. Eventually.”

Delphine dabbed her eyes and blew her nose again. “I should have told you sooner. It's something about being alone, I think, being without you, and traveling, that changes the way I think. And of course, I'm having nightmares again.”

“Aww, really? What kind?”

“The usual. You're dying or going away or I can't find you. A few nights ago I dreamed that we were together, and it was wonderful, but then it was really another Leda playing a trick on me.”

Cosima giggled. “Right, `cause that's never happened before.”

“Not like this!”

“Are you having sex dreams with other Ledas now? Is that what you're telling me?”

“It wasn't...” Her face was warmer, and Cosima's smirk said that she noticed. At least Cosima didn't seem angry with her anymore. “It wasn't a sex dream. It... almost was, but then I woke up before anything happened.”

“Tsch. Disappointing. Have any more of them hit on you? It's been a while since I've heard anything about that.”

“None as obviously as the one in Ethiopia, no. However, I'm fairly sure Kimia has a crush on me.”

“Oh?” Cosima eyebrows arched up to her hairline. “Anything I should know about there?”

“She hasn't crossed any lines, no. She's just very friendly, and I noticed today at the hospital that she was quite protective of me, rather like you are, actually. And, I don't know. Just little hints.”

Cosima tapped a finger on her laptop, sending little hollow beats through the speaker on Delphine's end. “How do you feel about that?” she asked.

She shrugged. “Flattered, I suppose, as long as it doesn't go anywhere.”

“And you're still not out to her at all?”

“No, of course not.”

Cosima thought some more, and then leaned back. “I guess I can't blame her. I had a crush on you from, like, minute one after meeting you, too.”

Delphine blew her a little kiss and leaned to get more tissues to blow her nose, but her knee twisted and she winced.

“Was that your knee?”

“Yes.”

“You know, I could've sworn you were wincing like that for the past several days, but you kept saying you were fine. I knew something was up with you, Cormier.”

Tissues finally in hand, Delphine blew her nose in what ended up being the least attractive way possible. It was the sort of nose blowing that left residual snot on her upper lip even after she'd gone through three separate tissues. “You do know me,” she acknowledged, “better than anyone else does. Probably better than I know myself by now.”

“I try to.”

Delphine leaned back and pushed a hand through her hair. The drugs she'd taken after leaving the hospital dulled the pain in her leg, but it still hurt. She was also hungry. Hospital snacks only got a person so far. “Well, if anything else happens, I promise I'll tell you. Even if I don't want to.”

Cosima gave one of her sideways smiles. “I would like that very much. By the way, you didn't tell me what actually happened at the hospital.”

“Oh. It's what I thought it was – a stable transverse fracture of the right patella. I need to stay off of it as much as possible, keep it elevated, and take these.” She held up the four pill bottles for Cosima's inspection.

Squinting at them, Cosima shook her head. “You're gonna have to spell those out for me, babe. I probably wouldn't know what they were even in English unless they're, like, vicodin or something.” With another little smirk, she added, “Damn it, Delphine, I'm an evolutionary biologist, not a pharmacist.”

Delphine shook the bottle of tramadol, labelled with a big black T since she couldn't read Persian. “This one's quite close to vicodin, actually. It's a narcotic.” Then she held up the others one by one. “This is prescription strength Tylenol, this is an anti-inflammatory, and this is an acid reducer.”

“Why do need a prescription strength acid reducer?”

“Because the other drugs will upset my stomach.”

“Gotcha. You're staying in Kerman for a few days anyway, aren't you?”

“Yes. Everything will be closed tomorrow and probably the day after that, as well. The restaurant here will stay partly open, at least, and Kimia's gone out to get us some groceries.”

Cosima wiggled her eyebrows. “Well, isn't that nice of her? Just let me know if she brings you flowers or something, too, yeah?”

The nearest thing on hand was a wadded up tissue, and Delphine threw that at Cosima's face on the screen. “You little brat. Yes, of course I will tell you if that happens.”

They talked a few more minutes, catching up on Cosima's less-dramatic life. She'd spent the entire day so far under the Rabbit Hole, playing Tetris and staring at her dissertation data while she waited for Delphine to call. She was still upset with Alison – even more so now that she knew what Delphine actually went through in Iraq, and she was worried about Charlotte, who was refusing to do her French homework.

“That's not like her,” Delphine commented. “Charlotte's always been good with her schoolwork.”

“That's why I'm worried. Sarah's grounded her, which is about as effective as telling Scott he's not allowed to breakdance for a week.” Cosima rubbed her forehead. “I'd like to hang out with her some this week, maybe tomorrow or Saturday. She didn't open up a whole lot to me last night, but everyone else was around.”

“She trusts you,” Delphine said. “Some more one-on-one time could be good for her. And for you.” She would have said more, but her stomach growled so loudly Cosima probably heard it. “Can I talk to you more tomorrow? I need to get some food and go to sleep.”

Cosima grinned. “Of course. I've never seen you on narcotics before; it should be interesting.”

“You've seen me sleepy before. It will be the same thing.”

“I just wish I were there to take care of you. Grocery shopping for you is my job, damn it!” She laughed, but it was true.

“Yes, it is. You can do it again soon. Just take care of yourself, spend time with your family – ”

“You are part of my family!”

“Spend time with the rest of your family.” She blew Cosima another kiss. “I need to get some food now. I love you.”

Cosima pouted. “I love you too. Call me tomorrow, yeah?”

“Count on it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thanks to FrenchClone and EverElusive for their help with this!


	6. Chapter 6

Rain pelted the windows of the Rabbit Hole's basement lab on Friday while Cosima wrangled with OpenOffice's formatting settings on her laptop. She hadn't been outside all day. No one and nothing required her presence, so she stayed in, eating cereal and the frozen pizza-for-one she found in the ice compartment of the mini fridge. 

“Come on you little shit,” she muttered at her screen.

Figure 3 needed to fit comfortably between two paragraphs, but no matter how she set the parameters, it refused to center itself. She was just about to throw her laptop across the room when Skype dinged. A moment and a click later, and Delphine's sleep-softened face appeared, still lined from the bedsheets, her hair a complete disaster, her lips pouting. In a moment, all of Cosima's OpenOffice frustrations vanished, and she grinned like an idiot.

“Hey sleepy head! How long were you out for?”

“Mmmm....” Delphine squinted at her screen. “Eleven hours or so, I think.”

Cosima whistled. “I'm impressed. And glad. Your knee needs that time to recover.”

Delphine made some more little sleepy noises and yawned wide enough that Cosima saw the silver caps on her back teeth. “I had another dream about you.”

“Oh? I hope I wasn't dying in this one.”

“Non. It was beautiful. We were on a beach, naked. It was warm and I had my face on your stomach.”

“That sounds fucking awesome. I'm jealous. And since it was a dream beach, you didn't get all the sand creeping up in every crevice. Or did you?”

“Non.” Delphine yawned again. “And I checked that it was really you this time. I checked your tattoos. I checked that your nose ring was real. I checked that little freckle you have right beside your nipple. It was you.”

By this point Cosima's face hurt from grinning so much. “You are adorable. How do you know all the other clones don't have nipple freckles too, though? They might.”

Delphine shook her head, eyes half closed. “The other one, the one I dreamed about the other time, she didn't.”

“Well, that's settles that, then. I might ask Sarah, though, just for shits and giggles.”

Delphine ran a hand through her hair, but it got caught on some tangles and she was too sleepy to sort those out, so she dropped her hand to her lap. “I'm hungry. There was food in my dream, too. Little stuffed grapeleaves or... tamales, maybe.”

“Sounds good either way. Get some room service.”

Delphine rolled her shoulders back and forth as she considered that. “I could. Kimia has a lot of food, too. She told me to text her when I woke up.”

“Did you?”

“Not yet. I wanted to talk to you first. As soon as she knows I'm awake she'll be here to check on me.”

“ “Check on you”.” Cosima made exaggerated finger quotes around the phrase. “Check you out, more like. But hey, if she has food and she's cool and whatever, go get some. Get some food, I mean.”

In her narcotic-induced stupor, Delphine missed the cheeky innuendo, and nodded. “I really want some carrots right now, actually. Or cucumbers. I think she got some yesterday.”

Cosima bit her lip, wanting more than anything to cradle Delphine's drooping head in her arms and call for the damn room service herself, but of course, she couldn't. “Get some more sleep, too, yeah? In fact, I suggest doing nothing but sleeping, eating, and using the bathroom for the rest of the time until you leave for Ahvaz.”

“Ahvaz... Ahvaz?” Delphine wrinkled her forehead and looked around.

“It's in southern Iran,” Cosima said, half giggling. “But you're not going there today or tomorrow, so don't worry about it right now.”

“No, but... I haven't found the clone there yet. I'm supposed to – ”

“And you are not going to find the clone there while you're doped up on painkillers. You can find her once you get there. Meanwhile, like I said, rest, stay off your leg, and eat. Okay?”

“Mmmm...” Delphine stretched and rubbed her face. “Okay. I love you.”

“I love you, too, like crazy. Now get some food!”

* * *

Late Sunday afternoon, Hell Wizard knocked on the upstairs door. “Someone to see you,” he called down.

If they were going through Hell Wizard, it wasn't Felix, Sarah, or Scott. “Okay,” she said, not looking up from her screen. “Do they want my money, or what?”

The lock clicked open and footsteps padded down the stairs. When Cosima turned, Alison Hendrix stood at the bottom of the stairs, clutching her chest with one hand and holding the wall with the other. “You don't even have a railing for the stairs?” Alison said. “This is a housing code violation!”

“Hi,” Cosima said, not rising from her stool, but leaning on the table with one arm. “Funny seeing you down here.”

“Yes, well, I've never actually been here, so...” Alison waved her hands around and took in the furnishings and equipment, much of which had been paid for by her or her family. “I just thought I'd take a look around, you know.”

“I could've sworn you saw it in video chats before. But, hey, I understand that sometimes you forget things. I could've just sent you a picture, though.”

It had the intended bite, and Alison drew back into herself. “Cosima,” she said. “I'm here to apologize.”

“And yet you manage to sound like you're scolding me. Funny.”

Alison ducked her head. “No. I am here to apologize. My... remarks the other day were ill-conceived and hurtful, and I understand that now. I never want you, or Delphine, to feel like you're not part of the family.”

“Maybe you should start acting that way, then.”

Alison looked up, a muscle straining in her jaw. “I would like you to give me that chance.”

Cosima reached across the counter for her cell phone and flicked backwards through her text messages. The process took long enough that Alison fake coughed a few times and said, “Cosima?”

“Here.” Cosima held her phone up to Alison's face. “From eleven days ago.”

Alison took it and skimmed the news article about the Basra protests, which Cosima had sent to Delphine after learning about them, before she knew Delphine had been hurt. “Yes?” Alison asked.

“Delphine only had, like, one and a half guards that afternoon, and she wound up in a crowd of protesters by accident. The guards lost track of her and she got knocked around a little bit.”

“Oh my God!” Alison stepped back and sat in the big yellow armchair. “Is she okay?”

“No, actually.” Cosima took her phone back and let Alison imagine for a moment. “She fractured her right knee, and it's hard for her to walk.”

“Oh. Has she seen a doctor?”

Cosima arched an eyebrow. “Yes. Why? You worried about how much it's gonna cost?”

Alison sighed. “Cosima. Let me help. Delphine needs more security, not less, I agree with you now. I was... distracted earlier when I asked about cutting that part of the budget, and I regret it now. And – ” She held up a hand to keep Cosima silent. “ – I regretted it before you told me about her injury, too.”

“Did you really?”

“Yes. I admit I needed a little help seeing things the right way, but I was not focused on what really matters.”

Cosima picked up a pair of forceps and spun them around in her fingers. It gave her hands something to do other than shake Alison by the front of her puffy vest. “The fuck were you focusing on before?”

Alison sighed. “You know I keep a close eye on the budget. I try to look at it from a long term perspective, not just for your travels currently, but also for what the funds might accomplish when you've finished curing all of our sisters.”

Cosima squinted at the forceps in her hand. She'd never thought about that, and didn't care to. The money was for their travels, nothing more. Whatever happened after all the sisters were cured, Cosima and Delphine would finance themselves. 

“I lost track of the people involved,” Alison went on. “I saw numbers, not... not family.”

“And by family, you don't even mean Delphine. In your mental hierarchy, Delphine is, like, down here, me and Sarah are maybe here, Donnie and your kids are here, and the fucking budget numbers are up here somewhere.” For each stage, Cosima held her hand out, starting an inch above the floor and ending a foot over her head. “Did I get that about right? I'm not even gonna ask where you put our international sisters in that hierarchy.” 

Alison hung her head, and while it might have been the dim lights playing a trick on her, Cosima swore Alison's eyes were wet. The flicker of pity that crossed her mind fled quickly, though, chased out by the memory of Delphine wincing and crying on Skype the other day. “Did I get that right?” she repeated.

“No,” Alison whispered.

“No? How do you rank things, then? Budget numbers even higher? Or are Donnie and the kids down with me and Sarah?”

“It wasn't like that.” Alison looked back up and met Cosima's gaze. “I wanted to make sure we – all of us – had enough money for the long term. Including you and Delphine, and Sarah and the girls, and Helena and the boys, and yes, of course my family, too.”

“Your family.”

“My husband and my children, Cosima, you know what I meant.”

Cosima spun around slowly on her stool, opening and closing the forceps in front of her mouth. “You know why I'm pissed at you, Alison. Why do you think a little apology and some half-assed self-reflection is gonna change that?”

“Well, I don't know what else to say to convince you that I'm genuine.”

“Okay, well, why am I pissed at you? Can you tell me that?”

“Because I effed up at Easter lunch and forgot to include Delphine in the family as a mass noun.”

Cosima inclined her head. “Partly. If that's all you said, though... by itself, that probably would've just rubbed me the wrong way, and I would've taken a deep breath and moved on. I have spent the past couple months pretending that Delphine's just my medical partner, after all. I'm kind of used to it in a really depressing way. But tell me, how many people think that you and Donnie are just coworkers? Business partners?”

“No one.”

“Yeah, that's what I thought.”

“I did not mean it like that, though. Delphine is just as much a part of the family as Donnie, or Felix. I mean that. I am just as excited about your engagement as I would be if Sarah got engaged.”

The idea of Sarah getting engaged briefly distracted Cosima, but she shook her head and returned to reality. “I believe you. Well, I believe that _you_ believe that, at least. But that's not what really pisses me off.”

Alison blinked.

Pointing at her phone lying on the table, Cosima said, “You know Delphine was kinda lucky that all she got was a knee fracture at that protest. I read up on it after she told me what happened. One guy lost an eye. One woman bashed her head and she's been in a coma ever since. Both at the same protest. Maybe even right next to Delphine.”

“Oh my God.” Alison clutched her chest again and squeezed her eyes shut.

“And Delphine still managed to get sucked into that... that chaos _with_ a security escort who'd been with her all day to find the Leda in Basra. She had _some_ security. I guess she was just less guarded that day because there were some VIPs in Basra who'd hired the same company, and who ranked a little higher, and we didn't pay for the VIP treatment when we signed up for their services 'cause we didn't think we'd need it. Imagine, if you will, what could have happened if she'd been even _less_ well guarded during that protest. If we had cut back on her security team like _you_ requested multiple times.”

She watched Alison's eyes widen and shift back and forth, and she went on.

“And that was just a regular protest against the Iraqi government. None of the people around Delphine in Basra wished her any harm; she just got swept up in it on accident. Imagine, if you would, what might have happened that day if the protest had been against Westerners. Or if they'd thought Delphine was American. Because guess what – Americans are not anyone's best friend over there right now, and a lot of people can't tell the difference between French and English, if they even bother to listen in the first place. All they need to see is blonde and white. She's fine right now because Iran is relatively safe, but what do you think will happen when she goes to Syria? And before you even go there, no, holding a medical bag with a red cross on it does _not_ always mean safety.”

She was exaggerating a little bit, feeding more into everyone's stereotypes about the Middle East and repeating the points everyone had made to her back in January, but once she started talking she couldn't stop.

“Would you care,” she asked Alison, “if something happened to Delphine?”

Alison trembled a little. “Of course I would care! I'd be.... I'd be devastated!”

“Would you?”

“Cosima, don't be ridiculous. I want Delphine safe just as much as you do.”

With a laugh, Cosima scooted away from the table and stood up. “Somehow I doubt that very much. If something happened to Delphine, _your_ life would go on just fine. You care about numbers, remember? Not people.”

“That was before, for a few moments, that's all! I was... I lost my way, I admit that, but like I already told you, I've corrected my course.”

“What changed your mind?”

“Well, lots of people, honestly. Felix and Sarah have been, um, fairly direct with me, and Donnie and I had some long talks, but I also spoke with my minister about it. You met him at the church over Christmas, I think. He understood where I was coming from, but he also guided me in the correct direction. For example, he asked me how I'd feel if Donnie were in Iraq or Syria, and...”

When she trailed off, Cosima prompted, “and what? You'd cut his security, too?”

“Of course I wouldn't.”

“I figured. Your relationship's a _little_ more important than mine, though, isn't it?”

Alison stiffened. “Of course it isn't. Please stop suggesting that. Why would you even say that?”

“Just a hunch.” Cosima walked over to a tray of petri dishes. One of these days, she hoped to use them for a science project with the girls. Taking the cover off of one, she licked the forceps and poked them into the agar, digging them in and drawing designs. Her gaze fixed on the designs as she went on. “Do you trust Delphine, Alison?”

“I... Yes, of course I do.”

“Bit of hesitation there, though. You know, I'm already pissed at you, you might as well tell the truth.”

“Cosima, I trust your fiancée! She's risked her life for us however many times now, and she brought down Neolution, and... and...”

“And?”

Alison's discomfort rippled through the room. “And nothing,” Alison said. “Whatever issues I might have had with her in the past are gone now, completely resolved.”

Now Cosima turned to look at her. “Oh, really?”

“Yes. Times were different then.”

Cosima scrunched up her face. “When?”

“You know.” Alison gesticulated in the air. “When Delphine was doing all that, that unsavory Dyad business.”

Cosima put down the forceps and leaned against the counter. “Wait. You're all worked up about what she did for Dyad? A year and a half ago? Two years ago?”

With a sigh, Alison flopped back into the chair. “You're not listening to me. I'm trying to tell you that I'm _not_ upset about all that anymore, that it's forgiven and I've moved on. Yes, I was upset and distrusting in the past, but she's proven herself trustworthy. She's proven she's on our side.”

“That's funny.”

“What is?”

Cosima snickered. “Everyone else thinks you're upset because we have better sex than you do.”

Alison's mouth went through a wide array of shapes, forming various guttural and nasal sounds while Alison's face turned about the same shade as a fresh raspberry. “Who said that?” she croaked.

“Um, let's see...” She pretended to count on her fingers for a moment. “Everybody.”

“Did Donnie say that?” Alison half rose from the chair, hand reaching for her purse.

Cosima couldn't very well throw Donnie under the bus like that, so she shook her head. “Okay, no. Everybody minus Donnie, how's that. And obviously not the kids.”

Alison didn't so much sit back down as rest her backside on the edge of the chair. “My sex life is no one's business.”

“Fine by me.”

“I'm not the one having sex in a closet at a resort for everyone to hear, after all.”

“Ahhh, there it is.” Cosima tapped her fingers on the counter behind her. “You could have, you know. No one was stopping you. And I have it on _good_ authority that Felix's space brownies were hella aphrodisiacs.”

Alison's apologetic tone and expression were gone now, replaced by righteous contempt. “Did you see her with Sarah, then?”

“Did I see Delphine with Sarah at Clone Fest? Um, yes, I did.”

“And are you just as flippant about that as everything else? That she's hanging on to whichever clone happens to be nearest?”

For a long moment, Cosima stared at her, the sound of rushing blood filling her ears. Then, in a voice low enough that Alison had to lean forward to hear it, Cosima said, “Are you suggesting what I think you're suggesting?”

Alison blew a noisy breath from her nose and tried to look superior, but mucus dripped from her nose, ruining her attempt at dignity.

“Alison.” Cosima stepped towards her. “Do you have a problem with my fiancée? Yes or no question.”

“No. I told you that.”

“Do you have a problem with her actions at Clone Fest?”

“Well, I – ”

“Yes or no question, Alison.”

“I was a little uncomfortable, yes.” She dabbed some more at her nostrils, reminding Cosima of a cocaine addict. “That's not what I came here to talk about.”

“Tough titties,” Cosima replied. “This is what we _are_ talking about.”

Alison rose to discard her used tissue. Standing with her arms crossed, she said, “Well, of course I understand that Delphine was a little bit, shall we say, under the influence.”

“Yes, she was. Unintentionally.”

“Of course.”

When Alison failed to elaborate, Cosima crossed her arms as well. “There is more you're not saying, Alison. I can tell. Now, you can go ahead and spill it out, or I can kick you out of my apartment. I have work to do, and it doesn't involve sitting around waiting for you to – ”

“Cosima, she was _hanging_ on Sarah! On our sister, our clone! Your clone! She was two centimeters away from kissing her! You saw that!”

“Yeah, and she also thought the pool was full of absinthe and her lungs were made of grapes. She got in an argument with some pool noddles. She was fucking high, Alison. You haven't got much room to judge there, either.”

“I have never... _draped myself_ over someone who looked just like my husband, no, I haven't.”

“That's because no one looks just like your husband. And, um, you did cheat on him, all the same. While you were sober. And, like, I'm not judging you for that, but you also have no room to judge Delphine for a goddamn thing.”

“What if it was me in that end of the pool when she was high?”

Cosima stared at her, playing through the events and images of Clone Fest in her mind. “I don't know. Are you worried she would've done the same thing to you?”

“Yes!”

Delphine probably would have draped herself all over anybody who was present at Clone Fest, including Donnie, Helena, or a passing resort employee, had she had the opportunity. She probably would have draped herself over a coat rack and told it all about her theory of universe. “Alison, she was baked out of her mind. It had nothing to do with...” At a loss for words, Cosima gestured at her own face, then at Alison's.

“Perhaps not. But, you asked if it made me uncomfortable, so I'm telling you that it did.”

“Okay. I still don't quite understand why, but...”

“I just think... well, it would have made me very uncomfortable to see Donnie doing that.”

“To see Donnie draped over one of us?”

“Yes.”

“Even if he were magnificently intoxicated? Why?”

“Well, I would wonder if he's as attracted to my sisters as he is to me.”

The thought of Donnie Hendrix being attracted to her did make Cosima uncomfortable, especially combined with the unwanted mental flashback to the day she pretended to be his surrogate. She leaned against the table and crossed her legs. “I'd prefer not to think about that, actually.”

“Yes, and so would I, but then I saw Delphine and Sarah, and, well...”

“Delphine's not attracted to you, Alison.”

“Oh for goodness sake, I didn't mean it like that.”

_Bullshit._ Cosima adjusted her glasses to let her facial expression pass. “Okay. Just letting you know, because it sure sounds like you're worried about it. She's pretty good at telling the difference between me, you, Sarah, and all of the other clones. Even when she's baked. Promise.”

Alison deflated a little. “I'm sure she is.”

“She's also seen the most Ledas of, like, anyone else alive.” As she spoke, she remembered her earlier conversation with Delphine, about her dream and how she'd checked that Dream Cosima was really Cosima. “Random question, by the way.”

Alison straightened up. “Okay.”

“Do you have a freckle just next to your nipple, here?” Cosima pointed her the spot on her own chest.

This time Alison's blush was lighter. “What? I... No?” She glanced down like she'd be able to see it through all of her layers. “Why? What has that got to do with anything?”

“Well, then you can rest assured that Delphine will know that it's not me if she ever tries to sleep with you. Just whip your tit out and she'll back the fuck off.”

Alison closed her eyes. “Cosima. You're not taking this seriously.”

“Oh, no, actually, I take nipple freckles super seriously. More seriously than you've been taking Delphine's security arrangements, as a matter of fact.”

“I – ”

Cosima watched Alison gape and reel from the topic change. “By the way, Sarah mentioned that maybe you've had control of the Foundation's finances for long enough.”

Now Alison's gape became a gasp. “I beg your pardon?”

“Yup. She mentioned that after dinner the other night. I was a little on the fence about it then, thinking maybe I was letting my emotions get the better of me, and I wanted to run it by Delphine first. I haven't done that yet, actually, because she's kind of bed ridden right now, and she needs her rest.”

“She hasn't said anything to me!” Alison squeaked.

“Well, no, she's knocked on her ass with narcotics. And, contrary to your belief, she's not itching to get closer to you.”

“Not Delphine, Sarah! She hasn't said anything about me changing roles, and she does our data entry!”

The conversation wore on Cosima's already stressed and poorly nourished nerves. She sat back at her laptop and stretched. “Yeah, well, she wanted me to break the news to you. Considerate of her, I guess.”

Alison's fingers clawed at her sweater. “So, what? I'm out of a job, is that what you're telling me?”

“Please. You're a business owner and School Trustee. And a homemaker. That seems to take up plenty of your time.”

“And you weren't even going to consult me?”

Cosima watched her sister's face, the hurt, confusion, and anger fighting to stay under Alison's veneer of comportment. For the first time since Alison opened her mouth on Easter Sunday, Cosima sympathized with her. Alison had, after all, been honest, even at her own expense, and even if she'd needed prodding, she had come alone to apologize. 

“I'm consulting you right now,” Cosima said.

“No, you're not. You're telling me. You're punishing me.”

Cosima didn't miss the plosive at the beginning of “punishing.” She had thought a lot about this since Sarah brought it up the other night. Even though Cosima now made all of their flight and hotel reservations, Alison helped them in a lot of small but critical ways – she made sure their credit cards worked, dealt with insurance details, and wired or transferred money to clinics and doctors ahead of time. Alison made sure the Foundation operated as a legitimate charitable foundation, with tax documents to prove it. It was Alison who hired the web designer and made the business cards. It was Alison who'd researched and hired Delphine's current Iranian tour guide.

“Nothing's being permanently set in stone, obviously,” Cosima said, “but I think you understand why I might rather handle a few more aspects of the operation myself. Like security.”

“I see.”

“You do understand, don't you?”

“I understand that you're upset with me, and you don't trust me to have Delphine's best interests at heart, yes.”

Cosima nodded. “Basically, yeah.”

“Can you give me the chance to prove you wrong, at least?”

Cosima spun around a few times, looking up at the ceiling. “Here's the thing. If I give you a chance, and you shortchange us...” Her voice trailed off, unable to form the words “Delphine could die.” She coughed and shook her head. “No. I will take care of the arrangements for Syria. You can help if you want, but I'm in charge.”

* * *

After Alison left the Rabbit Hole on Sunday evening, Cosima did her best to focus on her work. She cranked up Papa Roach, her old go-to work music from undergrad, and got a few more sentences typed in her methods chapter, but she kept remembering Alison's face when she said “you're punishing me.” 

It was true, sort of. She wasn't necessarily going to be any _better_ at arranging security than anyone else would be, and Alison seemed more than willing to increase their security budget now; Cosima just didn't want Alison to do it.

Then her phone dinged.

_The fuck did you say to Alison?_ Sarah texted. _You made her cry!_

“For the love of Pete,” Cosima muttered. Normally she would reply to a text with a text, but this time she just called, turning down the music first. 

“She's gone now,” Sarah said. “Stayed for a few minutes, chewed _me_ out, cried, and then she went home. I mean, I guess she went home.”

“Oh, shit, Sarah, I'm sorry. I kind of told her what we'd discussed the other night. I mean, I told her lots of other things, but that was one of them.”

“I guess so. Eh, she'll get over it.”

“Hopefully.”

“How're you doin' then?” Sarah asked. 

“Oh, you know. Peachy.”

Soft laughter drifted through the phone. “Peachy? Is that why Kira said you were upset earlier, along with Alison?”

“Jesus...” Cosima rolled her head around a few times. “Does she always tell you how I'm feeling?”

“Not usually, no. But she knew you and Alison were fighting since last week, and I guess she felt you both at the same time, so she brought it up before Alison came over. Least I've got one kid still talking to me these days.”

Charlotte was a much easier topic than Alison, and Cosima jumped on it. “Is Charlotte still giving you the silent treatment? It's been, what, a week?”

“Feels like it, but no. Just four days. She talks to Kira, I guess, but not to me.”

“Oh, man.”

Sarah sighed. “Yeah. I just... I mean...” 

“Can I talk to her? Like, one-on-one? I tried the other night, but everyone else was around.”

“Shit, Cosima, I'm thinking of just sending her to live with you. Or Alison, or, hell, even Felix. Art's too busy, and he's got drama with his own kid, so I can't just send her back, but – ”

“Can she hear you right now?” Cosima asked. 

“No.”

“Alright, well, she obviously can't live with me. We've kinda of talked about that already, but she could come hang out.”

Sarah sighed again, and her weariness washed over Cosima through the phone. “Tomorrow, maybe? After school? It's a little late for tonight.”

“Tomorrow after school sounds great. You'll drop her off?”

“Drop her off, sure. Pick her up again? We'll see how I feel about that.”

*

Charlotte was more than happy to chat with Cosima, but thirty minutes after Sarah left them together, Charlotte hadn't revealed anything new, or which might explain her recent behavioral issues. Every time Cosima asked her about that French presentation she'd refused to do last week, Charlotte changed the subject, asking to see the vials of inoculate or to read Cosima's dissertation.

“I can proofread it for you,” Charlotte offered, “I'm good at that.”

At least she was speaking. Cosima was torn between forcing the issue, which could push Charlotte further away, or ignoring it and letting Charlotte think her behavior was acceptable. Both options sucked. Cosima considered calling her mother for advice. If anyone had experience with a stubborn pre-teen Leda, it was Sally Niehaus. Unfortunately, Sally Niehaus was out to sea at the moment, cut off from communication.

Finally, Cosima chose the latter option, ordering them some Chinese delivery for early dinner and dropping the issue of the presentation as long as Charlotte did some kind of homework. As they ate, Charlotte worked on math equations and Cosima worked on her dissertation. They worked quietly together for so long Cosima jumped when Charlotte spoke again.

“Hey, Cosima?”

She looked up her laptop, trying not to look startled. “What's up?”

Charlotte's upper body was twisted over her math homework, and she didn't quite look at Cosima when she asked, “When you were in middle school, did you have a lot of friends?”

_Friends. Is that what this is about?_ Cosima leaned back in her chair. “Well,” she began, “I had _some_ friends. Maybe not a lot, but the friends I had were really good ones.”

“How did you make friends with them? What did you do?”

“Lemme think. I think we met through school. And we lived kind of close by each other, too, which helped, `cause we could walk or bike to each other's houses. But I don't remember the actual, like, mechanism that was used to initiate the friendships. I'm sure one of us invited another one to their house, or something like that, but I don't remember who did it first.”

Charlotte was looking up at her now, frowning. “What did you do when you went to their houses?”

“Lots of things. Watched TV or movies, played games, worked on projects, talked. There was a lot of talking, I remember, about all kinds of things. They would tell me about their lives, and I'd tell them about mine. We'd make up stories together, or talk about what we wanted to do when we grew up.”

“Did they visit you on the boat?”

Cosima laughed. “No. No, my parents didn't get the houseboat until after I left high school. We had a little house near the UC Berkeley campus, and they'd visit me there. We did go out on the water a lot, though, on a rental boat or whatever, but my friends never came with me then. Sometimes we'd go to the campus and run around, pretend we were older than we really were. We'd talk about what we would study, which dorms we'd live in, all that stuff. How cool we would be. The students probably hated us, getting in the way all the time. We thought the dining hall food was actually _good_.”

Charlotte sighed and spun her pencil around. “You were eleven?”

“Yeah, or close to it. Middle school age. We did that for a few years. I can take you out there sometime if you want. Berkeley has a beautiful campus.”

“I've never been to any campus.”

“You will, some day. Maybe we can go up to UT sometime this week; it's not far. We can visit Scott while we're there, see what their dining hall food is like.” Cosima spun around in the chair a few times, giving Charlotte the chance to respond, then wheeled it over to her when she didn't. “Why did you ask me that?”

Charlotte shrugged. “Just wondering.”

“Mhm.” She remembered the teacher conference she'd gone to in December, and all the conversations she'd had with Charlotte about social topics. The current conversation matched up with those, but it didn't quite match up with Charlotte not doing her school work. “You know,” Cosima went on, “one thing about my friends that I think about now, is how we were all different. None of us were “cool” kids. There was something about all of us that made other kids sort of point and laugh, or that other kids didn't understand. We all stood out from the crowd somehow.”

“Like what? Why did they laugh at you?”

“Oh, lots of reasons. I had these massive glasses that took up half my face.” She held her hands to her face to demonstrate, and Charlotte smiled. “And, I had kind of a Hermione Granger thing going on, where I was super smart, and I desperately needed to prove that to people, so I corrected them, all the time. I was little Miss “Well, Actually” until, like, tenth grade. As you can imagine, people didn't always appreciate that, and I wasn't always as correct as I thought I was.”

Now Charlotte was grinning. This was good.

“Plus,” Cosima went on, “as my parents can attest, my personal hygiene was, ehh.... kind of _rough_ , shall we say, during my middle school years.”

“So you smelled bad?”

“Often, yes. I remember standing in line for lunch at the school cafeteria, and a boy in front of me, who I _hated_ by the way, yelled at me about how bad my breath was. And he was probably right. I hated brushing my teeth and showering, really until I started high school. Now I love doing both, I should point out. Personal hygiene is _very_ important to Adult Cosima.”

Charlotte giggled. “Why didn't you brush your teeth or take a shower?”

“God, I don't even remember. I just wouldn't. Like, my mom would tell me to take a shower. She'd tell me I couldn't watch TV or whatever until I showered, and I'd go into the bathroom and turn on the shower, but just, like, sit on the floor, fully clothed, watching the water run, in _California_ mind you, for fifteen minutes, and then walk out again as though nobody would notice. The only reason I didn't smell worse more often is that I swam a lot, but of course that meant that my hair was all fried from the chlorine. I was a hot frikkin' mess, in other words.”

“But you still had friends,” Charlotte said, her face down again.

“I did. And, maybe they had the same issues I did. They never told me if I smelled bad or anything like that. They knew I didn't care much what I looked like, and I don't think they did, either.”

“You care now.”

Cosima looked down at herself. Half of her clothes came from consignment shops, and her current pair of pants were cast-offs from her last roommate in Berkeley, five years ago. But it was true, she did take care to present herself in a certain way, even if that way wasn't traditional. She made sure she was clean, that her dreadlocks were neat and tidy, and her clothes weren't falling apart. Yoga, pot, and therapy in high school had calmed her anxiety enough that she'd stopped picking at her skin most of the time.

“I do care,” she agreed. “And I think, in a way, I cared back then, but I cared about very different things. And I didn't understand, really, how the things I did, or didn't do, impacted others around me. Like, I didn't understand that not brushing my teeth impacted the people who had to smell my breath. I had to learn all of that. Everyone does, at some point.”

Charlotte went quiet again, twirling her pencil in her fingers and staring past the page of equations. She was silent long enough that Cosima patted her back and wheeled herself back to her laptop. Before she started typing again, Charlotte spoke again.

“But they didn't know what you are.”

Cosima cocked her head. Charlotte didn't look away now, but fixed her gaze on Cosima's face. “What do you mean?” Cosima asked.

“They didn't know that you're a clone.”

Cosima had the creeping sense of hitting the nail on the head, but she needed to tread lightly. “Well, no,” she admitted. “But none of us knew we were clones back then. I mean, except Rachel.”

Now Charlotte frowned and looked down at her papers. “Rachel doesn't talk to us anymore, though.”

Cosima had a hunch that Rachel hadn't had many friends growing up, either. It would've been tricky while being raised as a proclone. “No,” Cosima said, “but we’re still here.” When Charlotte didn't reply, Cosima scooted her chair closer. “Do you wanna talk about that some? Rachel, or clones, or anything like that?”

Charlotte picked at a spot on her cheek. “I tried looking for more sisters for you. I got this app on my phone that matches your face with other pictures of faces on the internet. But nothing came up.”

“You...” Cosima blinked. “You ran your own face through a facial recognition app on your phone?” It must have happened before she was grounded.

“It didn't work, though. None of the pictures that came up were Ledas. Not even Alison's face, and she definitely has her picture online from when she ran for office. You do, too. I searched for your name just to be sure, and I found your LinkedIn profile. It says you still live in California, by the way. You should probably update it.”

Cosima tried forming words, but all she managed were little sounds until she shook her head and rubbed her eyes. “Wait. Hang on. Let's, um, let's back up a few steps, shall we? Why were you running a facial recognition app on your phone, again?”

“To help you find the Ledas you can't find. I know you're checking social media and everything, but you haven't checked this way.”

“Delphine and I haven’t, but Art has. And his facial recognition software at the police station is probably a lot better than the app on your phone. No offense to your phone, of course.”

Charlotte considered that. “That's how Beth found you, right?”

“Exactly. With the police software.”

“But she didn't find Sarah.”

Cosima chewed on a hangnail. “She didn't _contact_ Sarah. It's...” she sighed. “I've thought about this before, and I've talked to Sarah, too, and... listen, Beth didn't tell us everything. So, we know she used facial recognition to find me and Alison, but then, we don't know why that software wouldn't have come up with Sarah's face, too.”

“Because Sarah was arrested and had mugshots, so she should've turned up.”

“Precisely. So, maybe the police software did turn that up, and Beth tried to reach out, but couldn't make contact. Or, maybe it showed Sarah, and Beth decided not to reach out for whatever reason. Or it didn't turn Sarah's face up at all. Ditto for all the other North American clones. We can't know that now.”

“Because Beth's dead.”

“Unfortunately, yes. But, what I'm sort of getting at here is, you don't have to help us out. It's very sweet of you, but you don't have to. We're finding most of our sisters just fine even without Art’s help.”

“You didn't find the one in Tunisia.”

“Morocco,” Cosima corrected. “And that's just the one. It's actually kind of impressive that we've only had one we can't find so far, but that's beside the point. We have people helping us search for them already. It's so great that you want to help, but...” She clasped Charlotte's forearm and shook her head, still wrapping her head around this new development.

“But what?”

“But there's so many other things you should be doing instead. Finding the Ledas, curing all of them – that's our job. It's on our shoulders, not yours. And plus, that app on your phone now has pictures of your face. Was it free?”

“Yeah.”

Cosima sighed. “So, it has your face, and it can give your face to whoever wants it. That was probably in the user agreement you agreed to when you downloaded it.”

“Lots of people have my face already,” Charlotte said. “Susan had this whole big folder with pictures of me when she took me to the island. The school has my picture, and the city does, too. It's on my student ID card.”

Cosima shook her head. “The school or the city isn't going to give your picture to, like, insurance companies who will use the image to compile data about your overall health for the rest of your life.”

Charlotte had the shrug of a child for whom the rest of her life was totally hypothetical. “I don't mind if people have my picture. Really. There's already 272 people on the planet who are exactly the same as me, and even the ones who've died still have their pictures out there. I just want to know who they are and what they're like.”

Cosima watched her for a few moments after she said that, fingers on her lips. “I get that,” she said finally. “I feel the same way.”

“But you actually get to go out there and meet them!”

Cosima laughed softly. “Not really, no. I've met four others, since we started. Four out of, like, one hundred and twenty or something. Like, met them face to face, talked to them, all that. There's been three others that I've seen, but not talked to. This doesn't count Krystal or Tony, of course. Delphine does all the treating, remember? If you really wanna know more about them, she's the one to ask.”

“I don't have her phone number.”

Cosima dug around until she found a scrap of paper and wrote Delphine's phone number and Skype name on it, then gave that to Charlotte. “There you go. Just check the time difference before you call, yeah? It's usually six to eight hours later over there. And maybe wait a day or two. She's on a lot of pain meds right now, so she'll be asleep most of the time.”

Charlotte nodded, looking down at the paper in her hand with wide eyes.

“Oh, and when you do talk to her,” Cosima went on, “just remember we can't give you anything identifying. You know that. We don't even share that much with the other Sestras.”

“The other Sestras have the Leda list, though.”

“Yeah, but the list is still pretty sparse and impersonal, and it sounds like what you're looking for is more, I dunno, substantial? Am I right about that?”

Charlotte slumped in her chair. “I dunno. Maybe.”

Outside the windows, night had fallen, leaving them in the dull glow of lamps and scientific equipment. Sarah would be back sometime soon, just as Cosima was finally getting to the root of Charlotte's most recent angst. “You know,” Cosima offered, “you could tell Sarah about this, too. She understands... clone confusion, I guess you could call it.”

Charlotte smiled a little. “Clonfusion?” she suggested.

“Yes! Perfect word. But, if you want her to really understand, you've gotta _talk to her_. She can’t read your mind any more than you can read hers. Okay?”

“I guess so.”

Cosima tapped the table. “So, now do you wanna tell me why you decided a big fat zero was better than doing your French presentation?”

Charlotte shrugged again. “I just didn't want to.”

As Cosima sighed, her phone dinged, telling her that Sarah was waiting upstairs for them. 

_One thing at a time_ she reminded herself.


	7. Chapter 7

On her laptop, Delphine had a password-protected spreadsheet listing every Leda clone she'd ever encountered, minus all identifying information. The sheet included notes about which stage of the disease each Leda was in at time of treatment and other facts about each woman that Delphine found interesting, like the presence of glasses, piercings, or tattoos; family and marital status; sexual orientation; hair and clothing style. Any other interesting notes, like moles or speech impediments, were added at the end. The data lacked a great deal of scientific rigor, but Delphine was fine with that. All the information was willingly presented by the Leda herself, never investigated, so for most of the cells, Delphine entered “unknown.” She was curious, not invasive.

Cosima knew about the spreadsheet. In fact, it was her idea, back in Brazil after they'd cured several dozen Ledas and were sitting around comparing and contrasting. A certain amount of red wine might have been involved.

The following morning, Delphine looked at the spreadsheet they'd created the night before and chewed on the pad of her thumb. “Are you really okay with this?” she asked Cosima.

“Hm?” Cosima shuffled over in her sleeping shorts and squinted at the screen. “What's that?”

Delphine kissed Cosima's glasses-free face a few times. “It's the spreadsheet we made last night, with all the Ledas on it.”

“Oh, right.” Cosima yawned and stretched and nearly fell over, and when Delphine caught her she wrapped her arms around Delphine's neck and snuggled into her. “What was the question?”

“Is it still okay with you that I have it?”

“Of course. Why wouldn't it be? I'm the one who suggested it.”

“I know, but...” she floundered, too tired and hungover to explain herself.

Cosima stepped back and looked up at her. “Delphine. Do you plan to share this information with any unsavory organizations or individuals?”

“No, of course not.”

“If someone stumbled upon this information, would they be able to figure out which women you were referring to?”

“I doubt that very much, unless that person is you.”

“Are you invading anyone's privacy to get this information?”

Delphine tried not to laugh at Cosima's mock-serious face and tone. “I am not.”

“Do you plan to publish a report on this information when we're finished?”

“Nope.”

“Well, then, Dr. Cormier. I say continue.”

*

The spreadsheet came up again on Tuesday, when Cosima told Delphine about her conversation with Charlotte the day before. Delphine sat in the restaurant area of her hotel in Ahvaz, sipping mineral water. 

“It sounds perfectly normal for her age,” Delphine said. “She wants to know more about who she is, and where she comes from. We all do.”

“Yeah. She wants to know about all these other clones, too, not just herself, and I don't know what to tell her. Like, she's met all the Sestras, so she knows how different we all are. She knows she doesn't have to be just like us, I hope.”

“That's probably why she's interested. It is fascinating, how different you all are despite... you know.” The restaurant area was not crowded, but enough people were around to warrant caution. Someone was bound to understand her talking about genetic identicals. 

“Exactly,” Cosima said. “Like how we all developed symptoms at different times.”

“For example.”

“I do still kind of wish I could study that,” Cosima admitted. “Like, what precise environmental factors made me get sick before Alison? Or, why are some of us really good at certain things, and others suck at them? Certain things make sense, you know. Like, Alison being super uptight probably comes from her upbringing – ”

Delphine snorted. “Are you still angry with her? I thought you talked everything over.” Delphine had heard an abridged version of the story from Cosima earlier, and a slightly different abridged version from Felix last night. 

“Yeah, we did. I'm still annoyed, though.”

“Why? She apologized, didn't she?” 

“She – ” Cosima cut herself off to huff into the receiver. “She apologized, yes, but I just... I'm still mad, you know?”

“At Alison?”

“Yeah, and at, like, everything. Everybody. Not you, obviously, but… lots of things. Life in general, I guess.”

“You were mad at me the other day, when I told you about my knee.”

“That's different. I was mad because I was worried.” Cosima took some more deep breaths, blowing them into the phone. They were the deep breaths of contemplation and rumination, and Delphine did not interrupt. “I mean, I'm still worried,” Cosima said. “But mostly I'm just really, really fucking frustrated. With just about everything. Like, every time I talk to someone, I just get pissed off. Not you, like I said, but everyone else.”

“Everyone?” 

“Okay, well, not Charlotte, either. Like, she's a kid, she can't help anything, but... but the more I think about my conversation with her, the more pissed I am at everyone else in her life. And not even the teachers, because they don't know what's really going on, but, like, the people who made Charlotte, who tossed her around like an unwanted pet for years. And I'm mad at Sarah for just dumping her on me when she's frustrated even though logically I know that it's fine.” Cosima huffed. “Felix is going to New York and I'm pissed at him for living his fucking life. I'm just... ugh.” 

Delphine let her soak in her angst across the phone line. In person, she could have rubbed Cosima's feet or shoulders, or pointed her in the direction of something that might make her smile. She could have kissed her knuckles and the tip of her thumb, and physically reassured her. Sitting in the little hotel restaurant in Ahvaz, she could do none of those things. 

“At least my dissertation is mostly finished,” Cosima went on. “That's a perk. Nothing else for me to do, is there? Not until my passport gets back.”

“When did you mail it out again?”

Cosima groaned. “Eight days ago. I guess there's been budget cuts for the US passport agency or whatever, plus way more people than usual applying for passports because everyone wants to get out of the country. And there's still a fucking postal worker strike right now, and, like, I am such a big fan of organized labor and unions and everyone's right to strike for better working conditions, but holy shit, I just want my new passport!”

Delphine couldn't see Cosima, but she imagined her lying on her back on the bed, gesturing up to the ceiling. “I know, mon amour. Eight days isn't so long, though. A few weeks is normal, I think.”

“Is it. And maybe it would've been better to just wait for that consulate appointment, which would have been today, and tried for the expedited service, but it just seemed like I'd have to wait for that, too. And now you're going to Turkey in three days, and I could've gone with you, but I don't have any passport at all right now, so that's a no go. Like, no matter what I do, it's the wrong decision.”

Cosima's voice rose and cracked. Nothing Delphine could say would help. Nothing short of laying beside her and wrapping Cosima in her embrace, which would be impossible for another week at the very least. Two or three weeks was a more likely time frame, and a month wasn't out of the question when visa processing times were taken into account. “It's not forever,” Delphine reminded both of them. “You know that.”

“I know.” 

Delphine looked around the restaurant. No one seemed to be listening, and Kimia was nowhere in sight. “We'll make it,” she told Cosima. “I still love you.”

“I know. I love you, too.”

Deep breaths came from the phone, and Cosima made a serious of nonsense noises, the kinds she made when she shook her head to clear it, or when she stretched first thing in the morning. When she spoke again, her words came fast, like she was pushing them towards Delphine, pushing past her angst. 

“Anyways,” she said, “away from my current problems and back to the previous topic, the clone topic, I do wish I could study all of these differences without being, like, totally invasive and unethical. Like, I'm _not_ going to study them because it would be wrong on all these levels, and it would make me just like Dr. Leekie and the Duncans and all of them, but it's fascinating all the same. You know what I mean?”

“Of course. I understand completely. I feel the same way.”

“Yeah, I figured you did. You were a monitor for a reason, I guess.”

They had talked about that, about how Delphine met Aldous Leekie and how she'd fallen into the job of monitoring a Leda clone before she fell in love with the actual clone, and Cosima had forgiven every one of Delphine indiscretions in that regard. Forgiven, but not necessarily forgotten. Delphine sighed. “Yes, I suppose so.”

“And,” Cosima went on, “back to the actual original topic, the first topic, I told Charlotte that you'd be the person to talk to about this, since you're the one who gets to see each and every Leda clone. Except the Israelis. They're mine. In a manner of speaking.”

“Tsch, I know. And I haven't yet pumped you for information about them, either. I'm failing in my scientific duties.”

Cosima whined. “Mmmm, you haven't pumped me for any reason at all in way too long, actually.”

Delphine laughed, then groaned, more aware than ever of her surroundings. “No, I haven't, and I am _very much_ looking forward to doing that again. We shouldn't talk too much about it right now, though.”

“Oh, are you in public?”

“I'm at the restaurant of the hotel.”

“You could go to your room, you know...”

Delphine groaned again at the reminder of why she was down here in the first place. “I could, but my room smells terrible. I think something died in the radiator. We're trying to get a new room for me, but it's taking a while.”

“Ewww, gross-town. See, if you'd gone to Israel instead of me, you'd be missing out on that great experience.”

“Now that would really be a tragedy, wouldn't it?”

“Totally.”

They slid into comfortable silence, but something nagged at Delphine's mind. “You know, Felix said something curious yesterday when I talked to him.”

“Oh yeah?”

“He called me on Skype to tell me about your conversation with Alison, and he said he's worried about you. He said he's seen you like this before, and it wasn't pretty. His words.”

Cosima scoffed. “Why is he worried about me?”

“He said you're not talking to anyone, and you've closed yourself in the lab. Again, just his words, not mine.”

“Yeah, yeah, I got that.” Cosima sighed. “Whatever. Like I said, he's off to New York pretty soon. Just because I'm not living it up or whatever like he is, that doesn't mean anyone needs to worry about me.”

It sounded pretty defensive to Delphine, but she didn't say so. “He also said, and this was the curious part, “at least she's not experimenting on herself again, I hope.” I just told him that I hoped the same, but I don't remember you ever experimenting on yourself, unless he meant the treatments that we tried together.”

Cosima was silent, and then she said, “yeah, I dunno what he's talking about either. And anyway, I'm fine. Nobody needs to worry about me.”

“Okay.” 

* * * *

Delphine and Kimia left Ahvaz on Wednesday morning, at what Cosima would have called “the smelly ass crack of dawn.” Delphine was still limping, so a hotel employee loaded their luggage into the rental car, and then they set out on their three hour road trip back to Basra, where a security envoy would take Delphine to Kuwait City. Ahvaz had an airport, but only once-a-week flights to Kuwait, so driving through Iraq was the better option. 

“I might visit Toronto sometime,” Kimia said as they pulled out onto the highway. “In the summer, I think, when it's not freezing. Will you be back there this summer?”

It was no secret that Kimia loved to travel – it was the first topic she and Delphine had bonded over when their little journey through Iran began. She'd never mentioned visiting Canada before, though, or visiting Delphine after their time in Iran was over. Delphine hesitated. “We won't be, no. We'll be in Europe all summer. Don't let that stop you from visiting, though. Canada's beautiful in the summer.”

“Oh, right, you're going to Europe next. You said that earlier. Well.” Kimia shrugged and smiled. “Maybe I could see you in Europe then? Europe is pretty in summer, too.”

“Euh, maybe. We'll see.”

Ten minutes or so later, Kimia brought the subject up again as she drove them out of the city and into rural Khuzestan Province. “I expect you're looking forward to Europe, to being back home, yes?”

Delphine was looking forward to Europe, but not because it was “home.” Canada was just as much home as France was now. Europe's biggest draw at the moment was that Cosima would be there. “I suppose. There's parts I'm looking forward to, yes.”

“Will you be in London at all?”

“I think so, but I don't know for how long, or when.” That was a tiny lie. She didn't recall the exact dates for their UK trip, but she knew it would be sometime in June or July. Probably.

“London's great. If you love big cities and... and...” Kimia tapped on the steering wheel, searching for the word. “And progressive people, I'll say, then you'll love London.”

“I've only been there professionally,” Delphine said. “There was a conference many years ago that I went to. But it was nice.”

Kimia made a noncommittal noise and nodded, her gaze focused on the strip of road ahead illuminated in the car's headlights, and part of her face hidden by her loose hijab. Delphine leaned back in her seat and thought about going back to sleep. She had not taken any tramadol the night before, needing to be alert for this trip, but she was still exhausted. Her knee still hurt, too, but not nearly as much as it had before she went to the hospital.

“I had a girlfriend in London,” Kimia said, still staring out the windshield.

“Oh?”

“A romantic girlfriend,” Kimia clarified, glancing at Delphine finally. “Not just a friend who is also a girl.”

Delphine nodded, unsurprised. “Okay.” After a few moments, she realized Kimia might need more reassurance than that. After all, the punishments for homosexual activity in Iran were brutal and sometimes deadly. A neutral reaction could be interpreted as negative. She twisted sideways and smiled at Kimia. “That's nice. What was she like?” she asked. “This London girlfriend of yours?”

Kimia relaxed and laughed even though Delphine hadn't tried to be funny. “Tall, athletic, impulsive. She was a dancer. She was an international student like I was; that's how we met. She was Spanish. We had a lot of fun together.”

Delphine giggled, too. “I'm sure that you did.”

She would have asked Kimia more questions about this Spanish girlfriend, but her phone rang, showing an unfamiliar Toronto phone number. “Excuse me,” she said, and answered it. It was common for her to take calls while Kimia drove, so Kimia waved her permission.

On the other end of the phone, there was a pause and breathing, and then a small voice said, “Delphine?”

“Yes? Who is this?”

“This is Charlotte.”

“Ah, yes! Bonjour, Charlotte, ça va?”

“Um. Bien. Et vous?”

She sounded like such a little school girl repeating after her teacher that Delphine grinned. “You can use _toi_ , Charlotte. It's okay.”

“Oh. Okay. Sorry.”

“It's a little late over there, isn't it? What time should you be in bed?”

“It's only 9:30, and I'm not grounded anymore.”

“That is good to hear. Cosima said you had a good talk the other day.”

“Oh.”

When Charlotte said nothing else, Delphine added softly, “she didn't tell me everything. She didn't even tell me a lot. She just said you're interested in, um...” She glanced over at Kimia, sitting right beside her in the car.

“She said you do all the treating,” Charlotte said.

“Almost all of it, yes.”

“Can you tell me about them? About the other clones?”

Delphine never used speaker phone outside of the privacy of her own room, but she still stiffened at the mention of clones and checked that Kimia had not reacted. “Not at the moment,” she told Charlotte. “But – ”

Sarah's voice came over the line from the background. “Charlotte? Who're you talking to? I told you to get ready for bed.”

“I'm talking to Delphine!”

“Delphine?” There were some small noises, and then Sarah asked Charlotte, “What time is it over there?”

“Uh...”

Grinning again, Delphine said, “It's just after 6 am over here. But I've been awake for an hour, so it's okay.”

“An hour!? You woke up at 5 am!?”

She was loud enough that Kimia heard it, and laughed along with Delphine. “I have places to go and a lot to do today,” Delphine said. “But I agree with Sarah, you should get ready for bed now. You have school tomorrow.”

“Can I talk to you later? Will you tell me about the other – ”

“Yes,” Delphine interrupted. “We can talk later. Maybe you or Sarah can text me with a good time for me to call you? Maybe the three of us can Skype together?”

“Maybe.”

“Go to bed now, Charlotte.”

Hanging up, Delphine smiled down at her phone, imagining Cosima at that age, pushing to know things that the adults around her didn't think she needed to know.

“Who was that?” Kimia asked. “A child, it sounds like.”

“Yes, she's... she's like my niece, a little bit.”

“Your niece?”

“She's eleven, and she's curious about everything we're doing, the places we go, all of that.”

“I thought you were an only child?”

“I am.”

“So how is she your niece? Niece is your brother or sister's child, right?”

 _Way to say too much there, Delphine._ Delphine bit her lip. “Correct. She's _like_ my niece, but she's not technically my niece. It's just the best way to describe our relationship.”

“How do you know her, then?”

“It's a long story.”

Kimia dropped her head to one side, one hand resting on the steering wheel. “You say that a lot, Delphine. Do you really have so many secrets?”

With a deep breath, Delphine said, “yes, actually. I do.”

“Hmm. Maybe one day I'll learn some of them. Find out why you hide these little things.”

Delphine let that statement hang in the car for a few kilometers, well past the appropriate time to reply. Kimia had taken a risk in outing herself to Delphine, showing a great deal of trust. Delphine's own disclosure, about her own relationship status, would certainly disappoint Kimia, but if the alternative were leading her into a trip to Europe, with false hopes that Delphine might return her feelings...

“I should tell you something,” Delphine said.

Kimia smiled. “I think there's a lot of things you could tell me, and all of them would be interesting. What's this one?”

“Euh, you know, I've talked about my medical partner, Cosima?”

“Yes?”

“Well, it's just that she's, euh, she's a lot more than my medical partner.”

The ensuing silence filled the car, pushing against Delphine and the insides of the windows. “Oh?” Kimia said.

“We're engaged, actually, to be married, since it’s, euh, it’s legal in Canada.” 

Kimia covered the lower half of her face with her left hand, possibly going over every conversation in her mind, every extra-friendly gesture she'd ever made towards Delphine. “Congratulations,” she said.

“Thank you. I think you can understand why I didn't tell you before, though.”

“Of course! You have to be careful, I understand completely. When I asked you at the beginning if you were married, and you said no...”

“I couldn't trust you then. It was easier to say I was single.”

Kimia nodded. “That was mutual, I think, the not trusting. This is Iran, not France, after all.”

Delphine had yet to come out to anyone on French soil, but still, she would never fear for her safety when she did. “I'm sorry,” she said.

“For what?”

“For letting you think... for not telling you sooner. It might have been useful.”

Kimia shook her head. “You don't have to apologize, Delphine. Like I said, I understand. It must be even harder for you to be here without her, then. You're not just by yourself, you're... you're incomplete, somehow.”

She didn't quite feel incomplete without Cosima; it was more like a rope connected her heart to Cosima, and it was pulled taut when they were apart. “You could say that,” she said.

“The child on the phone, then, is she related to Cosima somehow?”

“She's her younger sister. Much younger.”

“I see.”

The rest of the drive was mostly quiet, with the sun rising through the steaming air at the horizon. They stopped briefly near the Iraqi border to stretch their legs, get snacks, and use the bathroom. Back in the car, before resuming their trip, Delphine opened the photo gallery on her phone and showed Kimia the picture of her and Cosima together, taken at the park in Toronto last month – their second-to-last day together before being separated by international politics.

“This is Cosima,” she said.

Kimia stared wide-eyed at the picture, then zoomed in on Cosima's face. “She...”

Delphine nodded. “She had the same disease as everyone else. She developed the cure I'm using, and she was cured first.”

Kimia puffed out her cheeks and then shook her head. “That explains that, then.”

“Explains what?”

“Why you're doing this. Going to dangerous places to cure these women. It's for her, isn't it?”

“In a way, yes.”

Kimia clicked her tongue against her teeth and drove out onto the main road towards the border. “She is a lucky woman, your partner. I hope she knows that.”

The border crossing and drive to Basra were uneventful, and Delphine's security escort waited for her as expected. The team introduced themselves to Delphine, and she introduced them to Kimia, who shook hands with a polite smile. The team leader got Delphine's luggage from the Iranian rental car and into their SUV, and it was time to go. 

“Hey,” Delphine said, tapping Kimia's shoulder. “Thanks for everything. Seriously.”

Kimia gave her a dimply smile. “You are most welcome. It was my pleasure. Have a safe trip, please. No, trips! To all the places you're going.”

“I will. And you, as well, be safe. You can still visit if you want, by the way. Just give me some advance notice. You can meet Cosima.”

Kimia's eyebrows twitched. “Oh. Well. Maybe I will.”

Delphine reached out a hand, and Kimia pulled her in for a hug. Just before she pulled away, her lips brushed Delphine's cheek. A moment later, though, Kimia was waving goodbye and climbing back in the car, and Delphine joined her security team.


	8. Chapter 8

_Fuck Toronto._

The cold wind whipped Cosima's sweater around her Wednesday evening as she schlepped the week's garbage and recycling down the alley to the bins behind the Rabbit Hole. For fuck's sake, it was the middle of April. Cosima should have been packing away her winter clothes, not preparing for a 50% chance of snow and freezing rain that night. 

Back inside, she made another cup of herbal tea and stared at her computer screen. She'd made good progress that day, even managing a few moments of excitement about her chosen topic, but now the spark was gone. Clone cells from mice. Seriously, who even gave a shit about that? The world had enough mice, and a large percentage of those mice spent their entire lives suffering for the marginal benefit of humanity. Science could be fascinating, or it could be ethical, but rarely could it be both.

_Ding_

She picked up her phone and blinked at the message from Felix. _Drinks at Bobby's?_

Drinks anywhere meant going outside, which meant putting on more layers of clothing, including a bra, and being cold again. It meant conversation, the expectation of something new to say when Cosima had jack shit new to say about anything. Felix would have a lot of energy and would expect Cosima to at least pretend to care about whatever he talked about. She did not care. She did not have energy. All she wanted to do was curl up under the blanket and wake up a month from now with a new passport.

The little voice in her head returned – the little voice that drove Cosima to constantly read, listen to music, talk to people, play games, _do something_ to drown it out. It was loud these days. Too loud for much else sometimes, unless she was talking to Delphine.

_You could join her in a couple days if you hadn't tried to renew your passport,_ the voice said. _If you'd just kept it. Aren't you supposed to be the smart one?_

She pushed her thumb into her forehead and gritted her teeth. The voice came from inside of her, and everything it said rang true. It always had.

_Delphine's doing fine without you, you know,_ the voice said. _Getting your passport back won't change that._

_Felix doesn't care how you feel,_ it said. _He's heard you whining enough. You'll just annoy him. Or, he'll crawl up your ass about how you never get out anymore, and make snarky little science-geek comments._

Cosima plunked her tea mug on the desk and responded to Felix's text. _No thx. Think I'll stay in tonight._

_You sure?_ he asked. _I'm buying._

_Yeah, I'm sure. Thx_

She thought that was that, but a few minutes later he texted again. _Don't make me come and drag you out, Cosima. You know I will._

Christ on a crutch. Cosima groaned. _Don't. I have the shits and can't go anywhere._ Only a lie like that would deter him, and if he really tried to push it, she had some nice chemicals here in the lab that might make it reality.

After another pause, he texted, _If you say so. We'll just go have fun without you then._

“Please do,” she muttered at the phone, and tossed it back on the desk.

No more work was getting done tonight. She closed her laptop and paced a well-worn path around the lab that once excited her. Delphine lived here with her, her left-behind clothes and books reminding Cosima of the absence of Delphine's warmth. The entire space under the shop swam with ghosts that bumped up against Cosima late at night when she couldn't sleep, when she'd spent too long here, and when she hated herself. In other words, right now.

Kendall sat on the chair holding her arm out for a blood test.

Siobhan sat with her on the bed, calling her chicken and refusing to tell Cosima that Delphine was alive. 

“She's alive,” Cosima whispered to the ghost. “She was just waiting for me.” Another half-round around the lab brought Cosima face-to-face with Delphine's schedule tacked up on the wall. 

“I'll see you soon,” Delphine's ghost whispered in her ear from some past conversation. 

Cosima kept walking, once again coming upon Siobhan sitting on the foot of the bed. “She's still waiting for me,” Cosima told her. “I guess I'm just that kind of girl.”

* * *

“You should really get out more.”

Cosima blinked up at Hell Wizard from the game of Battleship. “Excuse me?”

“What's the last time you went outside for more than thirty seconds?”

“I...” Cosima looked at the door of the shop like it would answer the question for her. It was Thursday, but that information didn't help. “I dunno. Recently?”

“Not unless recently counts last month. B9.”

Cosima put a red peg in her B9 square. “Miss. What difference does it make how often I go outside? Where the hell would I even go? C2.”

“Arg!” Hell Wizard acted out a dramatic moment of tragedy. “Hit! Damn you! And you can go anywhere. Visit your sisters, or Scott, or... I dunno, anywhere. Just get out more. A3.”

“Miss. Says the guy who's still in his comics shop at nine pm. D2.”

Hell Wizard grimaced and punched the peg into his board. “Hit. I am leaving after this game. Also, I have more color in my skin than you do right now, and that is a sad, sad thing for you.”

Cosima tapped her finger on the edge of the board and imagined throwing it in Hell Wizard's face. Instead, she stood up and tossed the red pegs in her hand into the tray. “Yeah, whatever. Thanks for the game. You can go home right now if you want to. I'm done.”

* * *

Her phone woke her at 9:04 Friday morning, playing the special T.I. ringtone Cosima set for Sarah.

“Hello?” she slurred.

“You just waking up, Cos?”

Sarah sounded far too perky for this hour – a remarkable feat since _Sarah_ and _perky_ had never previously existed in the same thought. Cosima yawned. “Maybe. What's going on?”

“I got something in town I need some help with, was wondering if you were up for it.”

Cosima forced herself into a seated position and rubbed her eyes. “What do you need help with? And please, don't say you'll tell me when we get there. I hate that.”

Sarah laughed. “Fair enough. It's this place Cal bought a while back, thinking we might move into it. We never did, obviously, and he's stuck in Iceland for the next, like, forever. It just needs to get checked out, touched up, whatever, so he can rent it out.”

“I thought Cal had a cabin in the woods or something. Kira mentioned chickens.”

“He's got someone else taking care of that. What do you say? I'll get you lunch in town, maybe a beer or something.”

Cosima stared into the blurry space ahead of her, her brain sluggish. “Why do you need my help?”

“There's a couple things that are easier with two people. Felix is going to New York this afternoon, and everybody else has to work.”

“Except me. Gotcha.”

“It'll only take an hour or two.”

“Somehow I don't believe you.” Cosima tossed aside the covers, swung her legs over the side of the bed, and put on her slippers. “What kinds of work are we talking about, exactly? What needs two people?”

“Main thing is getting up on the roof – ”

“I am not getting on any roof, Sarah.”

“ _I_ will get on the bloody roof, okay? I just need someone to hold the ladder and call 911 if I fall off, a'right?”

Cosima tried thinking of a reason not to go, any reason other than “I don't want to put on pants,” but nothing came to mind. “Is it still cold outside?” she asked.

“High's supposed to be around 55 today,” Sarah said, “and sunny. Couldn't do it before 'cause it was raining so much, you know? Anyway, most of the work is inside. Just the roof part is outside.”

“You'll buy me lunch?”

“I will buy you whatever kind of lunch you want, promise.”

An hour later, Cosima jumped from the passenger seat of Siobhan's old truck onto the sidewalk in front of Cal's two-story townhouse, tucked around the corner from some shops and carry-out restaurants. The townhouse's red door, striking against the bright blue exterior walls, was decorated with a large spray paint drawing of an ejaculating penis and several illegible signatures. 

“Classy,” she said. 

“Yeah,” Sarah said from the bed of the truck, where she unloaded boxes, buckets, and the ladder. “It's been vacant a little while, I guess. Officially vacant, anyway. I came in here last week just to make sure no one's moved in without a key. Thankfully no one has.”

Cosima blinked against the bright spring sun and crossed her arms against the damp chill. She could have been in Kuwait right now, enjoying a nice dry ninety-eight degrees with Delphine before heading off to Istanbul. She could have been carrying Delphine's bags instead of carrying paint cans for Sarah. It wasn't fair.

“You doin' alright?” Sarah asked, handing her two cans of paint.

“Just fucking peachy.”

Sarah's work on the roof took all of five minutes once she climbed up the ladder. Once that was finished, they checked the smoke alarms, the windows, the faucets, and the latch on the basement crawl space. Sarah set everything out to repaint the living room, but after scratching her head for a few minutes and looking over the peeling walls, she said, “ah, fuck it. I'll take care of that later.”

Cosima sat on a five-gallon Home Depot bucket and watched her. “What's going on with you and Cal anyway? Why are you doing all this for him?”

Sarah wiggled around a little, the same way Kira did when asked a question she didn't want to answer. “It's a bit complicated, I guess. I owe him a lot, though. He helped us out in all kinds of ways back when, you know.”

“I feel like he also had some part in Helena getting kidnapped and tortured, though. Or did I imagine that part?”

Sarah sighed and took a long drink of water. “Cos, that's ancient history now. You know why everyone did all that shit. No one's got super clean hands, do they? Not you, not me, not Delphine, nobody.”

If she hadn't had a point, Cosima would have lashed out, reminded her what Delphine had sacrificed, what she was still sacrificing, for them all. It reminded her of Alison's comment the other day about “all that unsavory Dyad business” Delphine had done. She shook her head. Too many ghosts.

“Besides,” Sarah went on, “you didn't seem to have any problem with him when he came by for Christmas.”

Cosima didn't respond to that. “Are you at least getting a cut of the rental money once it starts coming in?” she asked.

Sarah shrugged. “Dunno. Maybe.” She strode across the room and grabbed the truck's keys from the counter near Cosima's head. “You still want lunch?”

Forcing herself not to grumble about the time they'd just wasted doing practically nothing in a house that Sarah didn't even own and might never make money from, Cosima stood and stretched. “Yeah, whatever. Sure.”

*

They went to a Japanese place a few blocks from the townhouse. It was empty except for a pair of men in suits talking about cell phones the way some people talk about fine wine or football teams. Cosima fixed her gaze on the goldfish swimming in the massive tank on the wall, and then on her menu.

Not looking up from her own menu, Sarah pointed at her. “You know, Cosima, I can definitely see that you and Charlotte are related. Like, even if I hadn't known you two were clones, I would know. You're just bloody like her, only, like, twice as big or whatever.”

Cosima looked up. “I am not twice as big. She's almost as tall as we are.”

“That's beside the point. You're still just like her. A little more refined, that's all.”

“Meaning what?”

“Meaning you're both stubborn as hell. You're like dogs when you get your teeth around something; you won't let go unless someone knocks you upside the head. Hell, even then half the time you keep hanging on.”

“That's kind of a Leda trait, though, isn't it? We're all like that.”

“Maybe so.” 

The waiter came by and they ordered – salmon nigiri and a spicy yellowtail roll for Cosima, and chicken teriyaki for Sarah. Once their menus were gone, Sarah dropped both hands on the table in front of Cosima and said, “So are you gonna tell me what's really got your knickers all in a twist or what?”

Cosima tittered. “Uh, only if you let me record you saying _knickers all in a twist_ like that. I might make that my new ringtone.”

Sarah gave her two dramatic middle fingers. “Are you answering the bloody question, then?”

“I don't even know what you're talking about.”

“Bullshit you don't.”

“Enlighten me. You brought me out here, after all.”

“You've been pissy as hell ever since you got back. First I thought it was just that thing Alison said at Easter, but it's way more than that, innit? You're pissy at Fee, pissy at Hell Wizard, and when Alison actually did apologize, you ripped her a new asshole.”

“So you're on Alison's side now.”

Sarah flopped back in her seat. “I'm not on anybody's bloody side. There's not _sides_ to be on anymore, is there? Yeah, I was pissed at Alison too after what she said, but...”

“But what? It was your idea to scale back her responsibilities for the Foundation.”

“I _suggested_ it, _if_ she didn't apologize and change her tune. Which she did, am I right?”

“After a bunch of people got on her case about it.”

“Okay, listen.” Sara mussed her own hair and then put both hands on the table again. “Maybe we stop pretending this is about Alison, yeah?”

“What is it about then?”

“ _You_ , dipshit. You're the one with a chip the size of bloody Ontario on her shoulder. Are you chewing out Delphine, as well? Or is it just us getting the privilege?”

Cosima wanted to retort that her mouth hadn't been anywhere near Delphine in way too fucking long, but she refrained. “You didn't hear what Alison said when she “apologized” to me. You don't – ” She bit the inside of her cheek and looked out the window at the veterinary clinic across the street. A woman in yoga pants walked a corgi out of the clinic entrance. The dog probably had better health insurance than Cosima had all throughout her twenties, and better health care than Nabil and his siblings ever had. 

“I don't what?” Sarah asked. 

“You don't get it,” Cosima said. 

“Pff. Please. Now you really sound like Charlotte. Even worse, you sound like me. Me when I was, like, fifteen and trying to convince Mrs. S that I was old enough to date a guy ten years older than me. But you're not Charlotte, and you're not fifteen bloody years old, Cosima. You want me to get it, fuckin' explain it to me, then.”

Cosima glanced at Sarah – her clone, her sister, the person who'd confided in her when things were at their worst with Neolution. Sarah knew about pain. Sarah had good reasons to be angry, to be depressed and frustrated. “There's nothing to explain,” she said. 

Sarah gave her a moment, and then clicked her tongue against her teeth. “A'right. Suit yourself then.”

They ate their food in silence. The sushi was delicious, but Cosima lost her appetite after less than half of the pieces. She watched people walking by and thought about Delphine flying to Istanbul. Then she corrected herself. Delphine had already _flown_ to Istanbul. She should be checking in to her hotel right about now. Cosima could have gone out and gotten her some food, to let Delphine rest her leg some, and it would have been a little adventure seeing which spots had the best food. None of that was happening, of course. 

“By the way,” Sarah said, breaking Cosima's reverie, “I'm going to see Helena this afternoon.”

“Okay.”

“You're coming with.”

Cosima opened her mouth to argue, to remind Sarah that Toronto's public transit system was just fine, thank you, and Cosima could make her own way back, so Sarah could just fuck off. But Sarah held up a hand. 

“Please,” Sarah said. “I want you to come with me.”

*

They got to Alison's house at half past two o'clock, and Cosima breathed a sigh of relief that Alison's van was gone. Helena let them in through the back, cocking her head at Cosima. In her garage apartment, Helena offered them water and crackers. 

“This all you got, Meathead?” Sarah asked.

“For today, yes. Normally on Friday we go to store, but today there is too much.”

“Too much what?” Sarah asked, hoisting Arthur from the playpen and nuzzling his face with her nose before settling him against her hip. 

“Too much busy for Family Hendrick.” Helena busied herself picking up toys and clothes to make space for her sisters before elaborating. “Oscar will have braces for his teeth today. Sestra Alison must take him, and she must also talk to a teacher for Gemma, and this morning she went to Bubbles for working, and tomorrow she must...”

Sarah waved a free hand. “Okay, okay, we get the idea. Alison has a lot of shit to do.”

Cosima sat in a chair that Helena had just freed of diapers. “Can't Donnie do some of that? The things for the kids, at the very least?”

“No.” Helena's face fell. “Very sad, what has happened.” Then she turned and unclipped baby clothes from her little drying rack, humming a song as she worked. Cosima watched, soaking in the pleasant simplicity of Helena's life. If Helena didn't live so close to Alison and didn't have two one-year-olds, Cosima might've asked to move in with her. No ghosts would haunt Cosima in this little space.

“What's sad?” Sarah asked.

Helena had too many clothespins between her teeth to answer, so Cosima suggested, “Maybe the heteronormative default which mandates that Alison be the one running the family while Donnie just works at his office?” 

Removing the clothespins from her mouth, Helena shook her head. “No, please. Donnie Hendrick, his mother, she has a stroke today. He is gone to visit her.”

“Oh shit,” Cosima said. 

“Yes, much shit. She is in hospital in Hamilton.”

Cosima covered her face with one hand. _Way to go, asshole._ At least Donnie hadn't been there to hear it. “I'll give him a call later, give him my condolences or sympathy or whatever. Maybe we'll get a card or some flowers.” What did one get for someone whose mother was in the hospital, anyways?

A commotion outside got their attention, and Helena opened the door. As she greeted Alison, Oscar slunk by behind his mother, looking as droopy as it was possible for a middle school boy to look. “He's having a bad day,” Alison said. “So he's going to spend some time in his room now. Is Sarah in there with you? I saw her truck outside.”

Before Helena or Sarah could answer, Alison poked her head into the garage and saw both of them. Cosima gave her a half wave. 

“Oh,” Alison said. “I didn't know that...” She trailed off.

“Neither did I,” Cosima said. 

Sarah bounced Arthur on her hip and diffused the tension by saying, “You know, Meathead, you could go grocery shopping yourself if you just learned how to drive properly.”

“I can drive properly,” Helena sniped. “Is only State of Ontario says no.”

“Province,” Alison corrected, then shook her head. “It's okay. Um, I'm terribly sorry that I can't be more hospitable to both of you, but I have to run off to Gemma's school in a few minutes, and then meet with the school board.” To Helena, she said, “I'm afraid the grocery shopping might have to wait until tomorrow afternoon. Although... shoot.” She pressed the palm of her hand against her forehead. “Gemma's Girl Scout luncheon is here tomorrow, and I'm visiting Donnie and his mom before that. Oh, fudge nuggets.”

Alison's sisters watched her ramble. Helena chewed on her lip; Sarah bounced Little Arthur with one arm and patted Little Donnie's head with the other. Cosima gnawed on a hangnail and remembered her last conversation with Alison. _Definitely for the best she's not handling Delphine's security anymore._

“I wish I could help,” Sarah said. “But I've gotta meet Charlotte's teacher in about an hour. Just a day for teacher conferences, I guess.”

“It's fine.” Alison waved her hand. “I'll just... tell Donnie I can't be there until later. You heard what happened?”

Sarah and Cosima nodded. “Yeah,” Sarah said. “We'll... I dunno, we'll call him to check in. Let me know if he needs anything, yeah? Is his mum awake? Is she talking?”

Alison shook her head. “No. She's been in a coma since this morning. It, um, it's not looking good, frankly.” She blew out a long breath. “And there's no way I'll be ready for the troop luncheon tomorrow. There's no food, no drinks... I can't ask another troop mom to host, last minute. I'll just tell Donnie I'll be up there later. Maybe on Sunday. I can miss church.”

“I think you have a good reason to put off the luncheon,” Sarah said. “Family emergency and all that.”

Cosima imagined if Delphine's mother had a stroke. From the little she knew about that relationship, Delphine might just shrug and move on with her life. If it were Cosima's mother, though, Cosima would drop everything to be by her side, and Delphine would join her. Cosima wouldn't have to go through that alone; Donnie shouldn't have to either. 

Cosima coughed. “So, you just need someone to go shopping for you? I could do that.”

Helena nodded. “I can also do that.”

Alison cocked her head at Cosima in a quite Helena-like way, her fingers resting at her sternum. “You... I mean... that's very thoughtful of you, Cosima, thank you, but... how? You rode here with Sarah, I thought?”

“Yeah. I could get a Lyft or something, though.”

Alison blinked several times, and Sarah gave Cosima a raised-eyebrow look that Cosima tried hard to ignore. Before Sarah could actually say anything, Little Donnie whimpered and then cried. As Helena scooped him up, Alison stepped into the room. 

“Are you serious?” she asked Cosima. “I thought that maybe... well, you know.”

Cosima shook her head. “This is not related to anything we talked about the other day. But yes, I am serious. I can run up to store and get whatever you need. Your husband needs you to be there, and the kids deserve more than crackers.”

Helena twisted halfway from her position at the changing table. “We also need grocery shopping. And more diapers.”

Alison inclined her head towards Cosima. “Well, thank you, again. That means a lot to me that you're even offering, and that... well. You understand. And! I just realized. You wouldn't have to take a Lyft! Donnie took the train to Hamilton so he didn't have to worry about parking there. You can use his car. No.” She put her hand on Helena's shoulder. “Scratch that. Use the van, so Helena can take the boys. The car seats are already installed.”

The last time Cosima drove a van it was for an undergraduate research expedition, and it sure as hell hadn't been a minivan. Never in her life had she driven a vehicle with children in it. “Uh... I mean, that's fine, but I don't really know what to do with kids,” she said. 

“Is okay,” Helena said. “I will take care of babies.”

*

Half an hour later, Cosima stepped into the Hendrix's favorite grocery store, Helena and the boys right ahead of her. With all the variety of stores in Latin America, North Africa, and the Middle East, a North American supermarket still made Cosima gape. She could only imagine how Helena must have felt upon first seeing a tower of cereal boxes or a decorative display of avocados. How would Nooran and her nieces and nephews react to seeing such abundance that one could turn food into art? She wondered if Helena had ever seen a dumpster behind a grocery store like this, full of food deemed imperfect or that was one day past the sell-by date.

At this point, though, none of this was new to Helena. She secured her sons in the baskets of two grocery carts and led Cosima through the automatic doors and into the produce section. As they walked, Donnie babbled up at his mother, and Arthur sucked on his fist and stared at Cosima. Over the store speakers, Whitney Houston sang that she wanted to dance with somebody, and Helena halfway sang along.

“Don't worry,” Alison had assured Cosima before they left, “this is a weekly trip for them. The routine is very important, so it's extra nice that you can take them.” Cosima didn't doubt that, but it wasn't her routine. She'd spent the past few weeks living on delivery food and whatever was available at the nearest corner store.

“We start here,” Helena said, pausing by the bananas display. “And then we go up and down the aisles.” She said the last phrase in such a Hendrix fashion that she must have memorized it.

“Okay.” Cosima looked down at the list Alison had given her. It was on a pink piece of paper with a flowery border, and it had about thirty items, organized by store section. Sure enough, the produce section was at the top.

Bananas (6)  
Fuji apples (6)  
Yellow onions (2)  
Fresh green beans (½ lb.)  
Garlic (1 bulb)  
Baby carrots (1 lb. Bag)  
Romaine lettuce (loose – ¼ lb.)  
Mesclun mixed greens (loose – ¼ lb.) 

At the last item, Delphine's voice rang inside Cosima's head – “Mesclun _means_ mixed greens!” – and Cosima smiled. One day she'd introduce Delphine to the concept of three cheese queso and the town of Table Mesa. Just as Cosima looked up from the list, Helena put a bag of cherries in her chart. Donnie pointed to it and and bounced. “That's not on the list,” Cosima said, double checking to be sure.

“Little Donnie loves cherries,” Helena said, “but, we must always take out pits, or they will choke.”

Cosima nodded. Cherries were healthy, and nothing said that they needed to adhere exclusively to Alison's list. They just needed to make sure they got those items. Come to think of it, Cosima really should get some things for the Rabbit Hole, too. Even her emergency food was running out. “Can I have some, too? I'll take the pits out myself.”

“Yes, of course.”

Things snowballed from there. Every aisle that had food caught Helena's and the boys' eyes, and by the third time Helena took something off the shelf herself, Cosima stopped caring if it was on the list or even remotely healthy. Helena's particular giggle grew with each item she picked up, and Cosima herself indulged Arthur's pointing at various items on the shelf. She held each item for him to see better and told him the names, which he tried his best to repeat but usually mangled. Overall, it was shaping up to be the best afternoon Cosima'd had in weeks. In the canned vegetable aisle, though, Helena turned halfway and looked at Cosima from behind a curtain of blonde curls. 

“You are not happy, Sestra.”

“Hm?” Cosima looked up from a canned of seasoned black beans that would go super well with that nacho cheese dip she'd grabbed. 

“What is wrong?”

“Nothing's wrong.” A tug got her attention, and then she spent a moment convincing Arthur to stop investigating her purse. 

“You are angry,” Helena said.

“What?” Cosima smiled up at her to show that was ridiculous. “I am not angry. Do I look angry?”

“You are not angry here.” Helena pointed to the floor under Cosima's feet, and then poked Cosima's chest. “You are angry here.” 

Great. Helena was on her case now, too. “Did Sarah tell you that? Did she tell you to – ”

“No, please. Not Sarah. You had argument with Sestra Alison, I know, but there is more, I think. I see you, Sestra.”

Cosima huffed and put the beans back on the shelf, tempted to leave Helena and her kids here in the store and drive back alone. Arthur's little hands reached for her again, though, so she gave him her hand to grab on to. The damp physical contact helped focus her. She took a few deep breaths, willing her mind away from the conversation with Alison, from whatever Delphine was doing right now without her, from the possibility of her own mother having a stroke some day.

“Please, Sestra,” Helena said. “Why are you so angry?”

“It doesn't...” Cosima shook her head and waved Arthur's hand around in two-inch circles, making him laugh. 

“It does,” Helena said.

Cosima snapped. “I am not _angry_! I am fucking _depressed_ , okay!?”

Once the words were out, their truth settled into Cosima. She stared down at her index finger in Arthur's fist and ignored the other shoppers who'd paused and stared at her outburst. With another deep breath, she closed her eyes and willed herself not to cry in the middle of a suburban super market. 

Helena rubbed Cosima's arm and hummed a little song, like she did with the babies, until Cosima opened her eyes and swore at the tears escaping down her cheeks. “Shh, shh,” Helena said, producing a cloth from her bag and dabbing at Cosima's cheeks. “Is okay, Sestra.”

Cosima huffed. “Is it? Nobody else seems to think so.”

“No?” 

Warm wetness on her hand made Cosima look down; Arthur was licking her palm. “Please tell me you have some hand sanitizer in that bag, Helena.”

“Oh yes. Much sanitizer.” 

From Helena's cart, Donnie whimpered and bounced up and down in his basket seat, so Helena turned from her sister to her son, shushing him with some kisses to the top of his head. “What is wrong?” she asked him. He waved a hand at something in the cart while Cosima detached herself from Arthur's slobbery attention, which just made Arthur whimper as well. 

“They are hungry,” Helena said. “Very little lunch today. Come, Sestra” She started pushing the cart away, but Cosima called her back. 

“Hand sanitizer?”

“Oh, you want? Yes. Here.”

The next aisle was cookies, crackers, and non-alcoholic beverages, much to the twins' delight. Helena said nothing further about Cosima's mood or the way she'd peeled off a few protective layers around Cosima's emotional core. In fact, for anyone who didn't know Helena, she seemed to have forgotten all about it. Cosima knew better. 

Singing along with the Mariah Carey song on the loud speaker, Helena got a jumbo carton of Goldfish crackers as well as four tiny ones. She opened two little cartons for the boys to snack on, and then she grabbed an eight-pack of juice boxes and opened two of those. When Cosima finished loading up her cart with the Wheat Thins, Triscuits, fruit punch, and seltzer water that Alison had asked for, orange crumbs littered the floor, the baskets the boys sat in, and the boys themselves. At least the apple juice seemed contained.

“Do you usually do this when Alison takes you?” Cosima asked. “Let the boys eat, I mean.”

“No...” Helena's mouth spread into a sly smile.

“Yeah, somehow I didn't think so. Can we at least, like, keep the crumbs off the floor?”

Helena sucked on her lower lip and clasped her hands in front of her. “Mmmmmm....”

“They don't make this much mess at home, do they?” As soon as she asked, Cosima kicked herself. She knew better than to make statements in the form of a question, and better than to assume things about people's lives. Not to mention she heard Alison's voice coming out of her own mouth, and it made her gag. “You know what, it doesn't matter. Forget I said anything.”

“At home they have a tray,” Helena said. “The cart has no tray.”

“Yeah, I see that.” Cosima watched Arthur shove a handful of little orange fish into his mouth, fingers and all. _Parenthood,_ she thought, _is exactly like this._ She thought back to the last time she'd been around young children in a similar capacity – her cousin Annie's wedding back in 2010, when Cosima was stuck at a table with Annie's best friend and the best friend's two toddlers. In that case, the mother had done most of the feeding, handing the toddlers just a few pieces of food at a time. Just as Cosima thought that, Arthur upended his Goldfish carton all over Cosima's shoes and laughed about it. 

“Oopsies,” Helena said, bending to scoop up most of the larger crackers with her hands just as Donnie copied his brother and dumped his Goldfish onto the floor. 

Cosima got the attention of a passing employee, who was staring at Helena and the babies as he walked. “Can we get a trash bag or something?” she asked. “Maybe a little broom? I'll clean all this up, I just want – ”

The employee shook his head. “Don't worry about it; we'll get it. Just make sure you show them the empty carton at the register.”

She could have hugged him. “Absolutely. Thank you so much.” 

“Thank you!” Helena called from three feet away. 

Rounding the corner into the next aisle, Arthur's fussing resumed. When Helena reached for another small carton of Goldfish, Cosima stopped her. “Can I make a suggestion? I will feed them. You just grab things and put them in the cart, okay? We're almost done with the list anyway – just dairy and baby stuff after this.”

Helena lay her head sideways on one shoulder and looked up at Cosima from there. “Perhaps.”

“Perhaps? Well, you'll still be around to make sure I do a good job, so – ”

“Yes, I know this. But then you must tell me why are you depressed, yes?”

_This bullshit again._ Helena should have just left it behind a few aisles ago. If it were anyone else, anyone other than Delphine, Helena, or one of the children, Cosima would have given her some strong words, including where she could shove the rest of the Goldfish crackers. But it was Helena, so Cosima just shook her head.

“You will not tell me?” Helena asked.

“I don't know.” 

Donnie squirted some apple juice from his juice box onto the cart handle, and Cosima took the boxes from both twins without bothering to ask Helena first. Really, she might as well piss off Helena; she'd pissed off everyone else.

Helena watched her without commenting on the juice boxes. “Has something happened?” she asked. “To Doctor Delphine or someone else? To you?”

Over the renewed whining of the boys, Cosima said that Delphine had hurt her knee a little bit ago, but as she said it, it didn't hit her like it used to. Delphine was fine now, in a safe country, and her knee was healing. She told Helena, and Helena listened and nodded. When she was finished talking, Cosima held the juice boxes out to the twins and let them sip without giving them control. 

“You should be there,” Helena said. “She needs you.”

“Yeah, that's what I keep telling myself.”

“But you do not believe it? Why not?”

Watching the boys meant Cosima didn't have to look at Helena, which made talking easier. They didn't understand more than a few words, anyway. She sighed. “I mean, I believe that I should be there. There's not much for me to do here, is there? I just... I have a hard time believing that she needs me all the time.”

“Hm.” Helena scratched her nose and took a package of pita bread from the shelf and put it in her cart. “All of the time, no. But I do think Doctor Delphine does need you. And not only for the sex.” 

It was hard to be too deeply depressed when Helena grinned at her like that. Cosima laughed, too, once her brain caught up. “We are never going to live that down, are we?”

“No.”

When they finally dragged themselves to the checkout line, their shopping carts were overflowing, and Helena was grinning like a maniac. Cosima put the open Goldfish cartons and apple juice boxes on the belt so the cashier, who was in the process of calling for backup, could scan those first. Arthur whined when his snack disappeared, and he waved a sticky little hand in Cosima's direction.

“Hey, hey, hey,” Cosima told him. “You'll get it back in a minute, calm down.” When he continued, she squeezed herself back around the cart, knocking off a few boxes of crackers in the process, and put her face at his level. “Little man. My dude. We bought you literally everything your tiny little fingers pointed at that wasn't alcohol or kitty litter. Calm. Down.”

Miraculously, it worked. Arthur sat back in his plastic seat and sucked the salt off his fingers, then watched Cosima with big brown eyes as she got the cracker boxes from the floor and started loading up the conveyor belt.

“Much moneys, I think,” Helena said from behind her cart, with a little smile on her face. “Sestra Alison cares very much about moneys.”

“Yes, she does,” Cosima agreed. “I'll cover this, though. Do not – ” She pointed a finger at Helena, “ – tell her that I bought it, though. Let me tell her, when I'm ready.”

The total price for all the groceries reached upwards of eight hundred dollars, a sum high enough to make Cosima pause. After swiping the Hendrix's loyalty shopper card, the total fell to almost seven hundred dollars, still the cost of a last minute plane ticket to somewhere two hours away. If Delphine were there, she would have been gripping her hair by the roots and trying not to hyperventilate, but then, Delphine never would have let them go this crazy in the first place.

And besides, Delphine was not here. She was off in Turkey, being responsible for both of them until Cosima got her passport back, and then she and Cosima could go back to being responsible together, and Cosima could look forward to a lifetime of shopping trips with Delphine.

Trying to act like she bought $700 worth of groceries all the time, Cosima flipped Alison's personal credit card to the back of her stack of cards, and inserted her own card into the chip reader while the store manager pulled over a third shopping cart for them.

“Little guys eat you right out of house and home, I guess,” the manager said. “Or is it a special occasion?”

“A little bit of both,” Cosima said.

Back in the van once they'd loaded up the groceries and she had strapped the boys into their seats, Helena put her hand on Cosima's shoulder. “You are good, Sestra,” she said. 

“Why, because I buy tons of food for you?”

“Yes, but also because of other reasons.” Helena put on her seatbelt with the care of someone who didn't wear one for most of her life. “Sad is okay. Angry is okay. You are okay.”

Cosima paused, hand on the key in the ignition. Behind her, Donnie bounced in his carseat, and Arthur chirped out “Gofish! Gofish!” No deep emotional conversation could happen here. She smiled at Helena, though. “Thanks, Bub.”

“You are here next week?”

She turned the key and backed the van out of their parking spot. “I have no idea where I'll be next week.” _Hopefully not here_.

“If you are here, we will do shopping again.”

“Uhh...” Watching for a break in the traffic helped her not look at Helena, so Helena didn't see the flash of panic in her eyes. “We'll see.”

“Yes, we will see. But Sestra, please.” Helena put her hand on her shoulder again. “The place you live, is a basement, yes?”

“Yup, sure is.”

“I have lived in basement before, and in cellar. Do not spend much time there. Come up to the light, yes?”

*

Unloading all the groceries at the Hendrix's took some time, but all the trips back and forth from the van paid for themselves with the look on Alison's face when she walked into the kitchen and saw the island overflowing with shopping bags. The babies were settled into their playpen in the living room and they both shouted “A-sin!” when Alison arrived.

“Hallo Sestra Alison!” Helena called from the cabinet she was currently stuffing with snacks. “We bought grocery for the house.”

“Holy Mother of Cheesecake.” Alison clutched her sweater and held onto the door frame for support. “Cosima, I thought I gave you a list.”

“Yeah, no worries, we got everything on it.” Cosima held up the two boxes of linguine that Alison had requested. “Where do these go?”

Alison shook her head. “In the... in that cabinet, over there, by the fridge. Why did you buy so much food? We'll never eat all that, we don't _need_ all that!” She walked around the island at a distance, leaning away from it like it might bite her. “Are those Little Debbie snack cakes?”

Helena returned to pick up a few of those boxes. “Yes. We have rolls of Swiss, rolls of Boston Creme, rolls of Zebra Cake...”

“Oh my Good Lord Jesus...” Alison sat down on of the bar stools at the other end of the kitchen.

Cosima smirked at her. “Look on the bright side. You're all stocked up now. Look, we even got some essentials for you. See, an extra large thing of cinnamon, a new bottle of vegetable oil, bread flour...”

“I don't _need_ bread flour!”

“Little Arthur picked this,” Helena said, taking the bag of King Arthur brand bread flour from Cosima's hands. “He likes the horsies, and it is named for him. We will make pancake.”

Alison's face contorted and began to turn pink. Cosima estimated that she had about two more minutes before she'd have to come clean about paying for it herself, but those two minutes would be worth it.

“Cosima,” Alison repeated, “I gave you a list! A shopping list with thirty-one items on it, and I specifically instructed you not to let Helena get too crazy! And you don't make _pancakes_ with _bread_ flour!”

“Who said all this was Helena's idea?”

“Yes, what is my idea, please?” Helena asked. “Little Donnie, Little Arthur, Sestra Cosima, we all choose the food. Family food.”

Cosima leaned over to Helena to say, in a pseudo whisper, “Those chocolate chip Eggos were all you, though, Bub. Don't lie.”

“Cosima!” Alison shouted. “We do not need all this food! This is all sugar!” She picked up a bag of Reese's cups and waved it at her sister. “I have spent the past year trying to get Helena off of her – ”

“Alison.” Cosima held up a hand to cut her off. “Those are for me.” Plucking the bag from Alison's hand, Cosima put it on the counter with the rest of the “Cosima food” and waited for Alison to rail on about how she wasn't about to pay for either of them to eat a bunch of junk food. 

Sure enough, Alison found the three-foot-long receipt and shook her head as she skimmed it, her eyes not even reaching the section at the bottom that listed credit card information. Then she put it back down and shook her head some more. She walked out of the room and then back in again. “Well, did you at least get the sliced almonds I asked for? I don't see them here.”

“Here are almonds.” Helena dug out both bags and handed them to her. “Two for five special.”

“Well, I suppose that's something.”

Cosima watched Alison put the almonds in the cupboard and then sort through the other groceries still in bags. When she picked up the jar of lemon curd, she paused, eyebrows lifting. “You know, this reminds me, I did just see a recipe for lemon curd puff pastries while I was waiting for Oscar at the orthodontist today.” She turned to Cosima. “Or was this one of yours, too?”

It had been. Cosima had planned to eat it with a spoon while watching Netflix, but she shook her head. Alison had been here for seven minutes now, and there had been no mention at all of the price. Cosima was almost worried.

“Well,” Alison said, putting the jar in the now overflowing cupboard, “we certainly won't need to buy much food for a while, will we? And, Helena, we will _space out_ the sugary food, okay? We're not eating it all at once, and we're not giving it to the boys except on special occasions.”

By the time all the food was sorted and put away or rebagged, it was nine o'clock. Still, Alison had not mentioned the cost of all the food. Instead, she smiled at Cosima while Helena bathed the twins and the older kids watched TV and drank almond-butter-and-coconut-milk smoothies Alison made for everyone. “Thank you, Cosima,” Alison said. “That was really a big help, and I know that Helena appreciated it. You spoiled her a little bit, but maybe that's okay once in a while. You used my card, right?”

“Um, no, actually, I used my own.” Cosima looked down at her fingernails, the satisfaction of the confession gone now that Alison was being so nice.

Alison gaped. “You did? Cosima, that's hundreds of dollars!”

“I know, but most of it wasn't what you asked for. Half of it's coming back with me. There was no reason for you to pay for it, don't worry.” The sentence _money's very important to you_ came to mind, but she squashed it. 

“I'm not worried, I'm...” Alison moved her hands around. “You didn't have to. I would have been happy to buy food for you. I hope you know that.”

Cosima did not know that, but she gave a half-nod and scratched her nose. “Okay.”

From the rest of the house, the sounds of babies squawking and TV characters talking carried, and Helena laughed at something. Alison watched Cosima, who looked out the window at a moth hitting the glass. 

“How's Delphine?” Alison asked. 

“She's good. Her knee's a lot better, but she still has to take some meds for it and not walk around too much.”

“That's good. Good that it's better, I mean.” Alison swallowed hard and fussed with a thread on her sweater. “She's in Turkey now, isn't she?”

“Yeah. She texted me this afternoon when she got to her hotel in Istanbul, but we didn't get the chance to talk.”

“Oh? Why not? I didn't think she was curing anyone until tomorrow.”

“I was busy,” Cosima said. “And there's the time difference, you know. With her schedule right now and with her leg, she was probably in bed by 9 o'clock, and it's eight hours later than us, so...” She let Alison do the math to figure out that Cosima had just arrived at Alison's house with Sarah when Delphine went to bed.

Alison nodded, looking down at her hands. For a few moments neither of them spoke, and then Alison said, “I feel like I should apologize for what I said the other day.”

“Which thing you said?”

“About... about Delphine and... and us. I was uncomfortable, yes, but that's my issue, not hers.” She looked up to meet Cosima's eyes. 

“I agree,” Cosima said.

“I think I still have some issues with being a clone, you know? And, that's all on me. I understand that. I'm sorry I said such hurtful things.” 

When Cosima didn't respond, Alison picked up an apple from the fruit bowl and picked at the sticker. “You know,” she said, “When I was talking to Rev. Rob at the church, he suggested that I see a therapist.” She smiled. “He even said that if you and I couldn't work out our differences, we might see a family therapist together. I couldn't bring myself to tell him how ridiculous that would be.”

“You mean therapy in general or you and I doing therapy together?”

“Both. I mean, can you just imagine telling a therapist that you're a clone?”

Cosima nodded. “Yeah, I've thought about that. For myself, for Charlotte, for Sarah. For Delphine, too, actually. I think she could use someone to talk to that's not me sometimes, but would she be able to really open to someone, honestly?”

Alison nodded. “What would we even say? What would we tell them?”

“I don't know. I had a therapist in high school and college, and it was really beneficial, but now...” Cosima shook her head. She'd swallowed the surge of emotions Helena brought up in the store, but now they welled up again. “It's one thing to explain that you're anxious and you're terrified of failing your classes, right? Like, lots of people feel that way.”

Alison hugged her arms against her chest. “But saying that you're a _clone_? We all need therapy, but we'll never get it, will we? Because as soon as we open up and say the truth, they'll smack us with medication for paranoia or hallucinations or delusions or...”

“Yeah.”

“So we take it all out on each other. Like I did, with you and Delphine. And I really am sorry.”

Cosima sighed, and the sigh became a yawn. She thought back to her conversation with Sarah over lunch, to the argument with Alison on Sunday, to all of ghosts populating the lab under the Rabbit Hole. “I might've been taking things out on you, too. I mean, don't get me wrong, I was mad at you for a reason, but not everything I said to you was because of that.”

“Of course. You're worried about Delphine.” Alison nodded. “And like I said on Sunday, I wasn't thinking about that as much as I should have. I can't imagine how it's been for you.”

Overcome with the tiredness of a day's exertion after a week of none, Cosima yawned again. “Well. Thanks for apologizing, at least. I do appreciate that.”

Alison put her hand on Cosima's shoulder. “Are you sure you want to head back tonight? You could sleep here if you wanted to.”

Cosima imagined going back under the Rabbit Hole, where the sheets hadn't been washed in two weeks, the toilet ran at random intervals throughout the night, and ghosts lingered in every empty space. In bed down there, silence pressed in on her, louder than any roommate she'd ever had.

“I can drop you off tomorrow morning on my way to Hamilton,” Alison said. “The TV will be off by ten, but sometimes Helena and the boys stay here a little longer. I have pajamas you could borrow.”

At the image of herself wearing Alison's, well, anything, Cosima laughed. “That's okay. I will crash here if you don't mind, but I don't need the pajamas. Thanks.”


	9. Chapter 9

Delphine pushed her luggage cart through the Istanbul Atatürk Airport by herself, staying close to the wall to avoid the frantic sprinting in the center of the corridor. The process, both in speed and distance, reminded her of another word Cosima taught her - _schlep._ If this wasn't a schlep, she didn't know what was. She passed by familiar spots, like the restaurant where Cosima complained about the mojitos and the concourse where she boarded a plane to Iraq and last saw Cosima in person. This time, though, Delphine left the airport on foot rather than plane, and she gasped at the thirty-degree temperature drop from her morning in Kuwait. Somehow, even though she checked the weather report, she expected Istanbul to be hot.

“Putain,” she muttered. 

During the taxi ride to her hotel, then the check-in, and then dinner, Delphine found that she missed having a tour guide. It had been nice to have someone handle the arrangements in the local language, scold someone for charging the foreigner too much, and explain exactly what certain menu items were. In Iran she'd had Kimia, in Kuwait her patient's husband had ferried her around, and in Iraq she'd had the security team. 

In other countries, Cosima could keep an eye on the taxi driver and the meter while Delphine dug around in her purse or checked her phone. Cosima could run out and buy last minute items or answer emails if Delphine wasn't up to it, or order food while Delphine used the bathroom. More often than not, it was Cosima who learned snippets of the local languages to use with shopkeepers, taxi drivers, or restaurant staff. Delphine usually stuck to the medical terms. Cosima would warn her which bathroom stall to avoid, and would find the fastest route to the clinic or hospital while Delphine showered. Cosima stood stock still when Delphine needed to lean on her, and she rubbed the tension from Delphine's shoulders. 

Delphine sighed and unlocked her hotel room door. The room had a flat screen TV and a painting of vegetables over the bed, and the carpet pattern reminded her of a Vera Bradley bag. There was only one bed, a queen-size, and one suitcase stand, and for just a moment Delphine wondered where they would put Cosima's suitcase.

 _Putain._ She slapped her own cheek.

She'd been away from Cosima for twenty-five days, and yes, she was counting. By this point, the solitude should be second nature, even if still ached. With a deep breath, Delphine put her suitcase on the stand, her carry-on bag on the bed, and herself in the armchair. 

It was okay. It would be okay.

Six weeks, even eight weeks, was not such a long time. Since they'd met and fallen in love, Delphine had gone longer without seeing Cosima. Those five months on the island had been worse, so much worse than now, because then she hadn’t even known if Cosima was alive, or if she still loved Delphine at all. Now she knew.

This current separation _felt_ harder, though. On the island, nothing reminded her of Cosima. While she thought of Cosima constantly, and wondered what Cosima would have thought of everything, it was hypothetical in the extreme until Cosima actually showed up. Here, even being in Istanbul proper for the first time in her life, everything reminded her of Cosima, and none of it was hypothetical. She knew what Cosima would order in the restaurant, what she would think of that movie poster on the street corner, and what she would say about their taxi driver. Cosima would comment on the number of lamp stores near the hotel, and she would say encouraging things to the little trees growing along the side of the narrow road. She would make friends with that dog outside the hotel.

Delphine pinched her thumb hard enough to hurt. “Concentre-toi,” she whispered. “Une chose à la fois.”

When she turned her phone back on, though, she had to suck her lips in to stay cool. The background image rotated every twelve hours to a different picture from her photo gallery, and now it was a picture from the sunset hike they'd taken in Puerto Rico last autumn. The view from the top of the ridge was stunning, but the focus was Cosima's awestruck face as she took in the valley below. Just looking at it, Delphine could smell Cosima's sweat and the heavy jungle air. 

_Putain._

She opened the messenger app and tapped Cosima's name. _In Istanbul,_ she typed. _No problems. I miss you._

* * *

Delphine's hotel for her three nights in Istanbul was in the Galata district of the city, a few blocks from the fitness studio owned by one Istanbul clone, but on the other side of the Bosphorus from the clinic where she would treat the other two clones on Saturday. As with so many other aspects of their travels, the hotel's location made perfect sense when Cosima reserved it for them in February, when they'd only confirmed an appointment for Hülya, the personal trainer and former judoka. 

Bright and early Saturday morning, Delphine took the ferry across the water and opted to walk uphill to the clinic. She hadn't walked in ages, and according to Google, it would only take five additional minutes compared to the bus. Besides, it was a sunny day, with a lovely breeze coming up from the water, and it was spring. Halfway to the clinic, a shop window caught her eye. It was happening more often these days; she would pass a store with wedding dresses in the window and pause to think about them. This time it was also a handy excuse to rest her leg and sip more coffee. 

What did she even want in a wedding dress? That was the real question.

Wide skirts, long trains, and any little decorations that came off easily could stay in the shop window. They were getting married at a park, after all, and she expected to pick up the babies (well, toddlers by then) at some point during the event. And it should have straps to keep it up; she wouldn't be tugging at her bodice all throughout the evening. 

Nothing too expensive, either. She was only wearing it once. 

For those criteria, only the middle dress in the shop window qualified. The top half was perfect – simple, elegant – but it flared out just below the hips, giving a distinct mermaid impression. No. She was not a fish.

She shook her head and kept walking. For heaven's sake, they didn't have a date for the wedding. Delphine could gain twenty pounds by the then, or something could happen with the park and they'd decide to have it inside instead. Anything could happen. Well, anything short of Delphine not wanting to marry Cosima anymore. That was out of the question. 

*

Her leg still ached a little when she used it too much, and after a day on her feet at the clinic she contemplated taking a dose of tramadol when she got back to the room. Hülya's appointment wasn't until Monday, so Delphine could afford to sleep and stumble around for twenty-four hours. At a little restaurant on the way to the hotel she grabbed a kebab wrap and a bottle of water to take to her room. A nice food coma paired quite nicely with painkillers.

She'd just gotten to the hotel lobby when her phone rang. _Please don't be Hülya,_ she begged. _Please don't change your appointment time. Again._ It wasn't. It was Charlotte, calling from ten a.m. in Toronto. There was also a new email icon, but that could damn well wait.

“Bonjour, Charlotte,” Delphine said as she stepped on the elevator. 

“Bonjour. Um. You said we could talk more about the clones.”

“Yes, I did. Is Sarah with you?”

“She's in the living room.”

“And where are you?”

“In the kitchen.”

It could have been a lie, but Delphine didn't push it. Whatever they discussed, Delphine could fill Sarah in later, or tell Cosima, and Cosima would tell her. 

“Can I ask you some French questions, too?” Charlotte asked.

“Bien sûr!” Those would be much easier to answer since Delphine was still en route to her room and didn't have all her clone information right in hand. “Ask away.”

“So, like, _clone_ is clone in French, right?”

 _Oh._ These _kinds of French questions._ “Yes,” Delphine agreed. “It's a cognate.”

“And, like, the verb is just _cloner_ , right?”

“That's correct.” Delphine was at her door now, so she held her phone between her ear and her shoulder to use both hands to open the door. 

“Okay. So, if I wanted to say that I am a clone, it's just _je suis une clone_. Just like that?”

“Pretty much, yes. Are you trying to tell your French teacher that you're a clone?”

Charlotte didn't answer, but posed another question. “If I want to say that I'm cloned from Rachel, I say, _je suis clonais de Rachel,_ right?”

“Euh, not exactly, no.” Delphine rubbed the bridge of her nose. After a day of dealing with Turkish, Turkish-inspired English, and Turkish-inspired French, not to mention living among three different national languages in as many days, her linguistic capacities limped along worse than her leg. Delphine took a deep breath and then asked Charlotte to wait a moment. She put the kebab bag on the desk, the medical bag on the floor, and her purse on the bed. The kebab needed to be eaten soon, but Charlotte needed this conversation more. Delphine picked the phone back up.

“Okay. We're just sticking to the grammar for right now, yes?”

“Yes.”

“So, it depends on how you want to say it, and how you feel about it.” Delphine paused again and kicked herself. She'd just dipped her toes into Charlotte's feelings about her genetic background, after saying she was sticking to the grammar. Somehow she felt like Cosima would be better at this.

“I don't really want to talk about how I feel about it,” Charlotte said. “Not in French.”

“That's okay. I can give you a few different options, and you can choose whichever one works best for you. First, remember that the actual act of cloning happened in the past, at one specific time. So, like in English, you don't say _I am cloned_ , you say _I was cloned._ ”

“Oh. So, _j'ai été clonée_?”

“Yes, exactly. That's just a neutral translation. You could add _à partir de Rachel_ if you want to. It sounds a little bit like Rachel made you, if that's what you want to say.”

A rustling on Charlotte's end suggested a search for a pencil and paper. “Okay,” Charlotte said. “What are the other ways?”

“You could say _Je suis la clone de Rachel_. That means you are almost exactly the same, or you look exactly the same. When I was a teenager, people told me _Tu es la clone de ta mère_ because I looked exactly like she did at that age.” And Delphine had hated it, but that didn't matter now.

“Figuratively, then,” Charlotte said.

“Oui.” 

“What are the other ways?”

Delphine rubbed her forehead, losing track of the grammar in the face of the much large issue of Charlotte's personal exploration. The smell of the kebab on her desk didn't help, either. “They... they're mostly literary, with grammar people don't use in conversation. I wouldn't worry about them.” Then she chewed on her lip and pondered the wording of her next question. “Charlotte... Are you actually going to say all this to your teacher?”

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

“She's letting me do my presentation late for a lower grade, and everyone says I have to do it.”

“Who's everyone?”

“Sarah and Kira and Cosima and Alison and the kids in my class.”

“I see. Is the presentation in front of your class?”

“Yeah.”

“What's the presentation about? Human cloning?”

“No. Well, not for anybody else. We're supposed to talk about our families and where we come from, like how we got to Toronto or whatever. It's to help us practice the past tenses and prepositions and stuff.”

 _Oh._ That explained a lot. “Do Sarah or Cosima know that you're planning to do this topic?”

“Sarah knows what the presentation's about.”

“That doesn't answer my question.”

“They'll find out.”

“I'm sure that they will, but...” How could she put this? How could she tell an eleven-year-old what to say or what not to say during her own presentation? Wasn't half the point of adolescence to make mistakes and learn from them? “Let me ask you something. How do you think your teacher will react when you present this? When you say that you've been cloned?”

Charlotte was silent, with background music the only clue that the connection was still open.

Delphine tried a different one. “What do you think your classmates will do?”

“They think I'm weird already.”

“You're not answering my questions,” Delphine said. “I answered yours, yes?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, maybe – ”

“Sarah already told me not to do it, but I'm doing it anyway. I already decided. If I'm not allowed to do it this way, I'm not gonna do it at all.”

Her way or the highway. _Ledas_. “Alright,” Delphine said. “As long as you know what the consequences could be.”

Charlotte gave the most cliché teenaged groan Delphine had ever heard. “Madame Valéry will take points off for not 'following the assignment properly' or whatever, and the other kids will make fun of me and call me a clone in the hallway like it's a dirty word, like they call Annabelle a lesbian like it's something bad. I _know_ that, and I'm still going to do it, but at least I want to get the French part right. I'm not letting her take points off for grammar, too.”

Delphine's heart broke a little to hear that _lesbian_ was still tossed around as a curse word, but at least Charlotte answered her questions. “Well, it sounds like you've thought a lot about it.”

“Of course I've thought about it.”

“Sarah might be called in for another parent conference. Just so you know.”

“I don't care.”

A mental image flashed in Delphine's mind – Cosima standing in the lab doorway, telling Delphine she'd locked her out, that she just really didn't want her there, and sounding an awful lot like Charlotte did now. Years ago now. She shook her head to clear it. “Okay,” she told Charlotte. “It's your presentation. I'm not going to tell you what to do.”

“Good.” 

Neither of them spoke for a moment after that. Delphine stomach chewed on itself and the music played in the background. Finally, Delphine suggested they talk more later, whenever Charlotte wanted to, and Charlotte mumbled an agreement. 

“Thanks for the French help,” she added. 

“Je t'en prie,” Delphine replied. Then Charlotte said an abrupt “bye” and hung up the phone. 

Off the phone with Charlotte, Delphine rubbed her eyes. She would call Cosima later and fill her in on that conversation, and maybe email Sarah, who almost certainly had not heard what Charlotte said. That could wait a day, though. For now, Delphine's stomach growled and her fingers trembled setting her phone down.

Thankfully, her wrap was still warm, so she tore into it, disregarding the meat juices dribbling down her chin and onto her blouse. She would wash it later. At a different time, she would pout that actual döner wraps in Turkey lacked the sheep cheese and tzatziki sauce she'd gotten used to in Frankfurt and Paris. For now, she filled her face and stomach with enough shaved meat and flatbread to strain the buttons on her pants. 

_Wedding dress shopping should definitely wait,_ she told herself, _if I'm eating like this._

She used the bathroom, washed up, and took a dose of tramadol for her knee. While she waited for it to kick in, she changed into sleep clothes and checked her email. Hülya emailed her confirmation for Monday's appointment, and the clone from Kuwait responded to Delphine's check-in email. So far no one had developed any serious reaction to the treatment, but it was good to check in with everybody anyways. 

And Alison Hendrix sent her an email with a photo attachment. _I thought you might like to see this_ , she said. Interesting. Delphine clicked on it.

The image that popped up was a photo of Cosima – her Cosima – asleep under a blanket on Alison's sofa, and draped across her torso was one of Helena's boys, just as sacked out as Cosima was. Delphine enhanced the image until it started losing focus, honing in on her beloved's face turned slightly away from the camera, on her relaxed eyebrows, soft lips, and the flared nostril that showed her breath. Her face was clear, with damp hairs at her temples indicating a recent shower. 

Delphine pressed her lips together and inhaled sharply. She and Cosima video chatted a few times a week, but video chatting was so formal, in a way – even when Cosima smoked a joint during their chats – and this picture was the opposite. This was the Cosima most people never saw – soft, vulnerable, and instinctively protective. Alison said nothing about how the baby got on top of Cosima, or when, but it didn't matter.

It took all of Delphine's willpower not to cancel the damn appointment with Hülya and book the first flight back to Toronto, so she could be there to kiss Cosima awake, to see her sleepy eyes and hear her just-woke-up noises.

But no. She was here because Cosima couldn't be. She would wait.

*

They Skyped again on Sunday evening – midday in Toronto. Delphine sat on the hotel bed with her back against several pillows and her computer on her lap. She'd gotten dinner nearby, but otherwise hadn't left the room at all.

“You're still on your leg too much,” Cosima said. “It's only been, like, two weeks since you hurt it. You should've stayed in and gotten delivery.”

“It's fine most of the time.”

“Yeah, right. I'm glad you slept a lot, at least. It's good for you. How's the food?”

Delphine squelched the urge to remind Cosima how much _she_ hated it when Delphine fussed over _her._ It was sweet, really. “Well. I bought some snacks at the store, and then I got some stuffed mussels at the cute little restaurant a few streets away. I also made a new little friend. Another one.”

“Oh?”

“Yes. He's about this big.” Delphine held her hands about shoulder width apart. “He's orange and white, and he loves having his chin scratched.”

Cosima giggled. She was back in the Rabbit Hole, on her bed in a similar place and position as Delphine. “Please tell me you got a picture of him. Especially if it has the two of you together.”

“Nothing that came out well. Have you ever tried taking a picture of a cat who wants your attention?”

“He probably wanted some of your food too. Did you give him some?”

Delphine shook her head. “I was almost finished when he came over. He's easily the twentieth cat I've seen since I left the airport. There's one who lives near the hotel, maybe with the dog, but he's not interested in me. This one tonight was the first who really paid attention to me.”

Cosima smirked. “So are you bringing him back to Toronto with you?” 

“No. I wouldn't even bring him into the hotel room with me. The poor thing probably needs a flea treatment. By the way, speaking of small cute things, I see you've been bonding with the babies a little bit more.”

Cosima laughed and covered her face. “Oh my god. That was so not intentional. I was, like, half asleep when he climbed on top of me and just started sucking his thumb. I didn't have the energy to remove him, and he was nice and warm.”

“He looked very comfortable.”

“Yeah. I had massive crick in my neck when I woke up, but at least he was comfy. By the way, the boys now call me “Kissy” because they can't pronounce Cosima, and it's... well, I'm not really sure how I feel about it, but at least they're not calling me “Mom”. Little Donnie called Alison that twice on Friday, and it was kind of awkward.”

“I can imagine. They can certainly tell the difference between you all, though. By the hair if nothing else.”

“Yeah, we don't think it's that. We figure it's because Oscar and Gemma call Alison mom, so the littles are just copying. I dunno.”

“So you were with them all day Friday. That's good. What about yesterday, then? What did you get up to all day?” Delphine asked.

“Oh, the usual. Worked on the formatting for my diss a little bit more, got high, masturbated....”

Delphine snickered. “That's your usual now.”

“Pretty much. I don't get super high, though. Not like I used to. Gotta save that for special occasions.”

“But you masturbate every day.”

“Okay, maybe not _every_ day. Just, like, most days. While I'm here by myself.”

“Mmm.” Delphine imagined, and smiled.

Cosima pointed a finger at her. “Don't look at me like you don't do it, too.”

“Of course I do! I can't do it as often as you can, unfortunately, but...”

“What, because of your knee?”

“Partially, for a while, it hurt too much for... well, for much else. That's a lot better now, though. Mostly it's because of where I was staying in Kuwait.”

“Ah, yes. The suffocating hospitality of the grateful patient and her family. You should be safe now, though, right?”

“Oh, yes. I, ah, I managed quite nicely the other day, I'll have you know.”

“Oh, fantastic!” Cosima straightened up and grinned at her. “Any, um, any highlights I might be interested in?”

“You already know everything! The only unique part was that I might have pulled something in my right hip. A muscle or something, I'm not sure. It's fine now.”

“Awww.” Cosima giggled. “You're getting old, Cormier.”

“So are you!”

“We can get old together, and pull hip muscles doing all kinds of kinky things.”

“I certainly hope so.”

They sat watching and missing each other through the internet. Cosima's right hand rested just below the camera's view range and the other reached over her head. Her face was more relaxed that Delphine had seen it in a few weeks. The day with her sisters had done a great deal of good, it seemed.

Delphine chewed on a fingernail, trying not to dwell much on the desire building inside of herself. “What are you doing today?” 

“Uh...” Cosima chuckled and shifted her position. “I'll give you two guesses.”

“Getting high and masturbating?”

“Might not happen in that order, but yes.”

“Can I watch, at least?”

Cosima's eyebrows drifted up her forehead. “You wanna watch me get off?”

“Of course. I always do.”

“Mm... Only if it's mutual.”

Delphine licked her lips and considered that. Watching Cosima get off would absolutely arouse her enough to follow suit, but over the internet? On a connection of uncertain security?

“You don't have to take your clothes off,” Cosima assured her, reading her thoughts. “Your face is enough.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. I mean, don't me wrong.” Cosima shifted again and pulled off her t-shirt. “I love seeing you butt ass naked, too. But seeing your face when you come, or even when you're, like, just really turned on... mmHMM. Gets me every time.”

Cosima's nipples puckered in the cool air, and Delphine's mouth went dry. She ran her tongue over the roof of her mouth and swore silently. Those flushed, delightful nipples were a continent away.

Noticing her distraction, Cosima grinned, then reached her arm back over her head to give Delphine a better view. “Like what you see?” 

Delphine put on a show of considering, rubbing her chin and her lips as she surveyed the delectable curves on her screen. The extra money for super fast internet more than paid for itself with the quality of this image. “Oh yes,” Delphine said. “I like it very, very much.”

The screen wobbled some as Cosima adjusted her position with her other hand. Delphine tugged on her own lip and ran through some logistics in her head. 

“Hold on.” Setting the laptop off to the side, Delphine climbed off the bed and then out of her pajama pants. Underwear went next – it would constrict her movements too much – but then the pajama bottoms went back on. Any nefarious people watching this over the distant internet could see her orgasm, but they wouldn't see her naked.

When she settled back on the bed and put the laptop in place, Cosima cupped her own breast and ran her thumb over her nipple, which stiffened at the attention. “Better?” she asked.

“Somewhat.”

“What else do you need?”

Delphine sighed dramatically and rolled her head around, making her hair go everywhere. “I need your mouth between my legs, but that's not happening right now.”

“Sadly, no. We can imagine, though.”

“Mhm.” _Imagine._ Like she hadn't spent the past twenty-five days imagining.

“Imagine you've got your legs wrapped around my head so I can squeeze your ass while I go down on you.”

Delphine had never been one for dirty talk – the tone of voice and turns of phrase always ruined it for her with previous partners. Then again, she'd never been one for women before she met Cosima, either, and Cosima's tone was matter-of-fact, not exaggerated for effect. Delphine rested her right hand between her legs, over the fabric, and did as Cosima asked her to. Her mind filled in other blanks as she watched Cosima on the screen – Cosima's tongue would move slowly at first, to tease and to pace herself. Only one hand would grip Delphine's ass. The other would caress her hip and thigh. 

“That is nice to imagine,” she said, voice thicker than usual. 

“Oh yes it is. And then, we can imagine that I'm fucking you with, like, my entire right hand.” Cosima held it up, shaped just right for fisting, so Delphine could see it.

Cosima's hand inside of her... Delphine groaned and tilted her head back, knocking it on the headboard. “You should do that. As soon as I see you again.”

“Well, maybe as soon as we're somewhere private. Let's not get arrested.” Cosima lowered her hand back to her lap, and her shoulder moved in miniscule back-and-forth motions. “How wet are you right now?” she asked.

Delphine snorted, her first two fingers still on the damp outside of her pajama pants. “Very.”

“Good. You're not getting nearly the quantity or quality of orgasms that you deserve at the moment. Not saying you don't treat yourself right, of course.”

“Oh, I can treat myself just fine,” Delphine assured her. “You know that.”

“I do. You know, I still have that strap-on here. I could go put it on, pretend to jerk off for you.”

Delphine laughed at the mental image, which could be sexy in person, but awkward over Skype. “No, no, that's okay! Unless you planned to fuck yourself with it. I would like watching that, but that would mean – ”

“I am totally okay showing you my snatch on Skype, babe, you know that. It's more that – ” She gasped, and her shoulder twitched. 

Knowing exactly what Cosima's fingers were doing off-screen and why she'd gasped turned Delphine on so much her cunt ached. She stilled her own fingers, keeping a layer between to prolong things. “More that what?” she asked.

“More that it will take forever to get it out and put it on, and I'm way too fucking horny for that.”

“Mm, me too, actually. I don't think I could wait for all that. How wet are _you_?”

Cosima bit her lip and her shoulder twitched. “Hella, I believe, is the technical term. You know what I really want?” 

Delphine had some pretty good ideas. “You want me to fuck you on all fours? I'd like that, too.”

Cosima's already shining eyes lit up. “Oooh, that wasn't what I had in mind, actually, but yes. I do want you to do that, while smacking my ass as hard as you can.”

With the tactile memory of doing exactly that, Delphine shoved her hand under the waistband of her pants. Cosima's ass would be firm and smooth, and she would be as slick and warm as... well, Delphine was far too turned on for those sorts of analogies. “What were you thinking?” she asked.

“I was thinking of you, in previously mentioned harness and neon blue dildo, holding me up to the wall and fucking me with my legs wrapped around your waist.”

There was nothing else for it. Delphine would fall out of herself if she didn't come soon. She slipped two fingers into her cunt, but still moved more slowly than her body wanted. On the screen, Cosima breathed hard and ragged, chest arching up as much as possible while she kept the screen in place. 

“Yes,” Delphine whispered. “Yes, I'll do that.”

“The next time I see you...” Cosima began, but then trailed off in a moan. Soon her own sounds were a steady stream of nasals as her breath came in ragged gasps. She was still watching Delphine though, and Delphine realized they were both waiting for the other. Neither wanted to come first.

Then Cosima gave her her best toothy grin, held her shiny right hand up to the camera, and licked her forefinger, lingering the tip of her tongue on the tip and swirling it around. That, combined with a few extra strokes of Delphine's thumb on her clit, did it. Her orgasm crashed into her hard enough that the laptop fell, and she nearly did too. 

With the vestiges of her brain, she heard Cosima cry out and then whisper, “Oh, fuck.”

* * *

Delphine sat in the lobby of the fitness studio on Monday morning, and checked her watch. Hülya was thirty-one minutes late. It wasn't the tardiest that a Leda had ever been for her appointment, but it was the tardiest that year. Not even Cosima was usually this late. The other Istanbul Ledas had both been early.

“She should be here soon,” said Bekir, Hülya's assistant and desk manager, for the fifth time. He offered her coffee, tea, or water; snacks; and the English-language version of the Hürriyet Daily News. She refused all of them. She had coffee at the hotel already, the snacks looked questionable, and she limited her consumption of current events to preserve her mental health.

Patrons came and a few of them went, squeezing in a workout routine before starting their work day. Most of them ignored her, a surprisingly pleasant experience with her hair uncovered. From the lobby, Delphine saw a few pieces of the equipment in the main gym area around the corner – two rowing machines, a treadmill, and the corner of an exercise bike. Had she brought the appropriate clothing, she could have fit in a nice little workout herself while waiting for Hülya to show up. Or rather, she could have if her knee allowed it. As it was, swimming would have been the better option.

When she wasn't looking at the gym equipment, Delphine stared at the four-foot-square portrait on the wall in front of her, which showed Hülya and her husband Eșref, who wore his bronze Olympic medal around his neck. According to Delphine's research, Hülya had tried out for three consecutive Olympiads – in 2012, 2008, and 2004 – but never made the Turkish Olympic women's judo team. 

_It would've been interesting if she had, though..._

She had time to kill, so Delphine leafed through the Leda notebook for this region until she found Hülya's entry. 

_Born June 4, 1984 in Istanbul, Turkey. Delivered by C-section._  
Married to Eșref Kandemir since 2015  
Monitor as of 2016: Onur Dikuç (also her coach and trainer 2003 – 2014) 

Delphine paused there, as she did with any irregularity or difference in a Leda's profile. _Another non-spouse monitor. Interesting._ Then she read on, just as impressed by Hülya's athletic prowess as she had been when she filled the page out last year. 

_Gold medal in the European Judo Championships (lightweight) 2010, 2011, 2013; Silver medal in 2012._  
Silver medal at the Judo Grand Slam 2012; Gold medal 2013; Bronze medal 2014  
Competed in the World Judo Championships 2009 – 2015; won bronze 2011 and 2015 

The door opened again, and Delphine looked up to watch a pair of sporty young women in yoga pants saunter past, showing their cards to the ID reader at the desk. Bekir glanced at them, his face tucked into the phone. After the women went on to the gym, Bekir hung up and smiled again at Delphine. “I talked to Ms. Eröz. She apologizes very much for the delay, and says she'll be here shortly.”

“Thank you.” 

At least Delphine had nowhere else to go. The bus to Bursa left at 5 pm, and the hotel allowed checkout until 2 pm, so Hülya could take another 5 hours if she wanted to. Delphine could wait. As she waited, she read up on the judo events Hülya had won in her twenties, and on the women who had won the Olympic team spots Hülya had tried out for. The results were even more interesting. 

For every year Hülya failed to qualify for the Turkish Olympic team, the women who did make the team performed worse, overall, in the Olympics than Hülya had in previous international competitions. No English or French sources told Delphine what Hülya's performance was in the qualifying matches, so Delphine had to trust that, for those competitions, Hülya had in fact done worse than the winners, but beyond that Delphine was highly skeptical. A few of them women Hülya beat soundly in previous matches easily bested her countrywomen in the Olympics. Had Hülya competed in London, Beijing, or Athens, assuming the same conditions as prior, she could have gotten a few medals. 

_And stood on the podium with her face visible for every television in the world to see._ Delphine sighed and wondered what would have happened if Alison Hendrix ran for something higher than School Trustee of Bailey Downs. 

With the help of Google translate, Delphine poked through an article from 2011 about Hülya Eröz's failure to win the Olympic team spot that year. One word that came up several times was “hasar.” Injury. As Delphine tried to ascertain the kind of injury and perhaps how Hülya had gotten it, the door opened again and the former Olympic prospect herself rushed forward to apologize for her tardiness. 

“Have you been waiting long?” Hülya asked as Delphine stuffed the Leda notebook and her phone into her purse. 

“No,” Delphine assured her. “Not too long. It's fine.”

She inoculated Hülya in her office, which was packed with sports memorabilia and photographs. The fitness studio itself supported no particular team, but Hülya's office overflowed with the black and white shield of her personal favorite team. 

“What's this for, again?” Hülya asked, shedding her jacket to expose muscular bare arms and a stylish red top. 

Delphine paused. “Your doctor didn't tell you?”

“Oh, he did, but I don't remember.”

Delphine lay the alcohol swab on the table and considered Hülya's expression. It was not the look of a flighty or scatter-brained woman. Rather, it reminded Delphine of Rachel Duncan. “Well,” Delphine said, “I don't know exactly what he told you, but this is to treat a progressive autoimmune disorder that you are at great risk for.”

“I see.”

“Has he examined you recently?”

“I had a physical two weeks ago. He said everything was fine.”

“That's good.” Delphine picked alcohol swab back up and tore it open. “This will help keep things that way.” She wiped Hülya's upper arm and gave her the practiced smile. “It will pinch a little bit.”

Hülya laughed. “Please. You have no idea how many needles I've gotten, and in far worse places that my arm.”

Delphine didn't ask for more details there. She injected the inoculate, discarded the needle in her portable sharps container, and removed her gloves. “Please email me if you have complications whatever, no matter how small.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, many, many thanks to both EverElusive (for the Turkish details) and FrenchClone (for the French details). My stories would be so much less vibrant without both you.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Deepest apologies for the delay in getting more chapters posted! I've been trying to get an agent to rep my original fiction, so that's taken up a lot of time and creative energy, plus the rest of the usual life type things. 
> 
> Thank you so much to everyone who commented in the past two months - it really does help to know people enjoy reading this. 
> 
> And as always, the timeline of real world events is magical. It's based on actual events, but the order and placement of these events is adjusted to suit the narrative here.

Cosima didn't know how to write a condolence card. She sucked even more at picking one out, but on Tuesday that was her One Job. 

At the card-and-party-goods store Sarah brought her to, the card section stretched over three full aisles, and the “sympathy” cards were ten percent of that. “Just grab a card,” she muttered to herself, “any fucking card.” But all of the cards she picked up sucked. Donnie Hendrix just lost his mother – the first person in his entire life who loved him – and the trite pre-written message on a two dollar piece of card stock was supposed to sooth his pain? Were the swoopy cursive letters and watercolor flowers actually supposed to comfort anyone? Or wasn't it all just a ploy to make those who hadn't lost anyone feel better about themselves? Like saying “look, I helped” without actually helping anything at all?

She picked up a card showing a tire swing at sunset. _Always remember that every part of life is a part of God's plan_ , it said.

Cosima huffed. “Is cloning a part of God's plan, too?” she asked the card, and stuffed it back into it's slot.

Another read, _Nothing happens without a reason_. A whole bunch of Cosima's life experience contradicted that one, too.

 _Those who love us never really leave us_.

“Way to rip off Sirius Black, yo,” Cosima told that card. As she suspected, JK Rowling was not credited with the message anywhere on the back.

She had no idea how close Donnie was ( _had been_ ) to his mother. If ( _when_ ) Cosima's mother died, there wasn't a card in existence that would even dent Cosima's pain. To make matters worse, in her search Cosima came across sympathy cards for the loss of a spouse or partner and she nearly fled the card aisle to join Sarah in the “summer fun” aisle with the pool noodles and plastic sand buckets. The two news alerts from Syria she got a few minutes ago really didn't help, and Delphine wasn't even in Syria yet.

Cosima was scowling at a card reading _Don't cry. They're in a better place now_ when her phone rang. She crammed the card back in it's overcrowded slot and answered. “Hey gorgeous,” she said.

“Hey,” Delphine said. “Is everything alright? You said you needed some help?”

Delphine sounded exhausted, and Cosima chided herself. Delphine had treated two Turkish clones in two cities in two days. She deserved some time to herself. “Totally alright,” Cosima assured her. “Nothing to worry about. Forget I asked.”

“Euh, not very likely. What do you need help with?”

“Well, you seem like a classy lady, and so I thought – ”

Delphine's snorted laugh cut her off. “I'm sorry, what?”

“I have to buy a sympathy card for Donnie, and I have no frikkin' clue what to get, or, like, what to do when we see him later today.”

“Oh.” Delphine's mirth vanished. “Why are you buying a sympathy card? What happened?”

“His mom died. She had a stroke on Friday and she never woke up from the coma. Not, if you ask me, the worst way to go, but still sad, you know?” Funny how none of the sympathy cards said that: _It wasn't the worst way to go, but it's still sad, I know._

“Hm.”

“Anyway, I'm trying to find the right card, and nothing seems right. Sarah doesn't know either, and the whole “sorry your mom died” thing kind of sent her to a bad emotional place too. Totally understandable, you know? She's distracting herself right now. I'd normally ask Alison, but obviously that doesn't work here. Scott's socially inept in these areas, even worse than me, and my mom's off the grid until June, so I can't ask her either.”

“I see.” Traffic rushed by on Delphine's end, and she said, “hang on,” a couple of times before the traffic noise ceased. “I'm not sure how much I can help, actually. I'm not exactly an expert in comforting phrases or what to say after someone dies. In English or in French, actually.”

Cosima sighed. “Well, you've gotta be better at this than I am. Like, what kind of card would you want if your mom died?”

Delphine laughed again. “That depends.”

“On what?”

“How she died, if she'd decided to talk to me before she passed, if she has a will...”

“Let's say there's no will, you were on speaking terms, and she died of a stroke.” Cosima had no idea about the will part, but assumed it didn't matter here. “In fact, you know what, scratch that. You'd probably want a card saying something like _Guess what? She's dead._ ”

“In my case, yes, that would be fine. But this is not my case.”

“What kind would you want if I died?”

Delphine inhaled sharply, and Cosima kicked herself again. Delphine already had those nightmares. “I'd rather not think about that.”

“Yeah, fair. Ditto.”

“Cosima. What kind of card do you think you should get? What would the right one say in this situation?”

“I just want one that says, _This sucks, and we all know it sucks, and we're here for you._ None of this greater purpose, heaven and God shit. I mean, I know the Hendrixes go to church and all that, but... I don't know. It seems off base to me, and it'll be super obvious I don't mean it.”

“Don't they have any blank cards? You can write in your own message if you want.”

“I am not sure that would be better, actually.” She sighed again and held a hand to her forehead. Chances were, this would be their only conversation that day – it was dinner time in Bursa, and Cosima would be spending the next few hours with the Hendrixes. She should get the most out of her daily Delphine Time. Walking away from the cards towards the big store-front window, she asked, “How'd your day go, then? How was the treatment?”

“Fine. She's asymptomatic, as we suspected.”

Cosima smiled. “Nice of you to use the plural there. If I remember correctly, _you're_ the one who convinced _me_ not to drop clone fest to inoculate her back in March.”

“You weren't terribly opposed, though.”

“Mostly because I knew Alison would kick my ass.” Cosima giggled. “If only we'd known how Clone Fest would actually go! Alison might've been happy for us to miss it.”

“I thought you two smoothed all that over?”

“Eh. I guess. Forgiven but not forgotten, for my part.”

“Doesn't sound like you've completely forgiven, either.”

“I've forgiven enough to not bring it up again with her. How's that? I'm letting it slide.”

“As long as you're both okay.”

“I am fine. Alison's husband is the one I should be worried about right now. And you. I'm always worried about you.”

“Don't worry too much. Bursa is very nice. Rainy, but nice.”

“Oh, I'm sure it's nice. And it's not really Bursa I'm worried about, either.”

Delphine made a noncommittal noise. Cosima picked up a little animatronic Easter bunny from the store's clearance bin and pushed the button on its ear. While it danced around to its tinny robotic song, Cosima tried to think of something else to say – something other than “you know there have been chemical attacks in Syria recently” and “you know our security team can't really protect you from everything.”

“How's everyone else?” Delphine asked.

“Fine. Charlotte's still being Charlotte. Sarah's worried she's gonna fail her math class, so we're all trying to help her out with that.”

“Wait. Sarah's worried that Charlotte will fail? I thought she was strong in math.”

“No no no. Sarah's worried that Sarah might fail math.”

“Ah!”

“Too many shes, I know.”

“Hm.”

Cosima looked around to make sure Sarah wasn't in hearing distance. “I'm trying to kind of gently coax her into, like, an advisor's office or something. Maybe an academic counselor.”

“Sarah, you mean?”

“Yes, still Sarah. Like, it's weird.” Cosima looked around again. Sarah had moved on to the “Over the Hill” birthday aisle, where she was laughing at some tombstone shaped decorations. “She's obviously smart,” Cosima whispered to Delphine, “and she's doing everything she's supposed to do. She's working her ass off for these classes, and she just can't get it. Me and Scott are still tutoring her like once a week or so, but I dunno. I think she needs something that we're not able to give her, but I don't know what. She just keeps saying she's too stupid to get it, but I don't think that's the case.”

“No, I don't think so either.”

“She was joking the other day that someone must've dropped her on her head as a baby.”

Delphine was silent on the other end, but in the silence Cosima heard her thinking. The gentle tap of a pen or pencil gave it away. Before either of them to continue the conversation, Sarah came over and waved a “old man survival kit” at Cosima.

“Art's birthday's all set, then,” Sarah said. When Cosima just stared, she clarified. “He's turning 40 in a couple weeks.”

“Oh,” Cosima said. “Cool. Um. Send us the date, yeah?”

“Sure. He doesn't want anyone to know, but whatever.” She waved at the phone in Cosima's hand and raised her voice. “Hi Delphine!”

Delphine chuckled softly and said, “Hello Sarah” in a voice soft enough for Sarah to miss it. 

“I should get going,” Cosima said into the phone. “I probably can't talk much later, but text me if you want, yeah?”

Delphine agreed to, they both said “I love you,” and Cosima hung up. Then she turned to Sarah. “How'd you know I was talking to Delphine?”

“Your face, mostly. Anyway, you ready yet? Where's the card? I wanna get outta here before I buy too much shit I don't need.”

* * *  
* * *

On Thursday, as Delphine travelled to Izmir, Cosima sat in their apartment and scrolled through job listings. The exercise was futile – she wouldn't apply to any of them and anyway, she didn't have her PhD yet. Her advisor sent back a list of dissertation edits yesterday, but Cosima had only made two of the smallest ones. More and more, every time she sat at the computer, her mind drifted. Some of it was the same old shit: anxiety over the state of the world and the nagging feeling that nothing she did amounted to much. And worry about Delphine. She always worried about Delphine. The job search began as a combination of those – worry that she'd never get a job good enough to give Delphine the kind of life she deserved.

Her family made sure to get her away from the Rabbit Hole for at least an hour every day now, and Cosima was not allowed to protest. If she did, they pretended to move in with her, loudly, until she left the apartment in frustration. That only happened once, though. Tuesday's outing was to the store and the Hendrixes, where Clone Club gathered to support Donnie in his grief. Yesterday, Cosima was back at Bailey Downs, to “help Helena with the boys” while the Hendrixes attended the funeral in Hamilton. “Helping with the boys” made no sense, of course, since Cosima didn't know what the fuck to do with one-year-olds except make silly faces once in a while, and Helena resented the obvious supervision. Cosima spent half of that visit riding Alison's bicycle aimlessly through the subdivision by herself.

Thoughts of the twins and the suburban expanse of Scarborough set Cosima's mind spinning again. 

She remembered the sprawling, packed metropolises of Mexico City, Istanbul, and São Paulo. Those weren't even the biggest cities in the world, and still their size and scope took her breath away. She remembered the bustling streets of Lima and Cairo, and she'd never stopped being amazed at how many distinct individuals existed in the world. Little Arthur and Little Donnie were unique, just like every single one of those people. Just like Delphine. Just like Cosima and each of her sisters.

She shook her head and tapped her own cheeks. Another cup of tea was in order, but before she got up her phone emitted a weak little chirp – another news alert from Syria. 

“Fuck it,” Cosima told her laptop. Grabbing her coat and purse, she went outside, leaving the job search and dissertation edits behind.

The Syrian news alerts never made Cosima feel better. Even the occasional cease fires failed to get her hopes up, because most of them devolved into violence again, or yet another armed group entered the scene to fuck shit up again. 

At least Cosima now checked those alerts only from outside of the Rabbit Hole, with a view of sky and trees rather than drab walls and a moldy ceiling she lacked motivation to clean herself. Ignoring the chirps from inside the apartment didn't change the situation, but it helped Cosima keep her head screwed on, and it kept her from telling Delphine to just stay far the fuck away and send someone else to cure the Syrian Leda. 

Not that she hadn't thought about it. The trouble was that no one else would do it – not the way it needed to be done, or with the appropriate discretion. 

Cosima ordered a chai latte at the cafe around the corner, sat near the window, and gave in to her brain's desire to dwell on bad news for the day. 

Fighting in Aleppo  
schools bombed in Idlib  
clinics shot up in Ghouta  
ISIS kidnapping people in Deir ez-Zor

Hundreds of thousands of people were trying to flee with the clothes on their backs, and the only people trying to get in were ISIS recruits, aid workers, and foreign military “advisors.” By the time this whole shit show ended, Cosima doubted there would be anything left of the beautiful country she'd wanted to visit as a teenager – encouraged by her tenth grade math teacher who just happened to be Syrian and also super fucking hot. But that was now beside the point. The point now was that a different super fucking hot object of Cosima's affections would be in Syria within the next couple of weeks. Their purchase earlier that year of “kidnap and ransom” insurance only made Cosima feel worse.

Skimming over the most recent alert from Damascus, a pair of chimes interrupted her. The first was from Qamar, their remaining Arabic translator, requesting a phone call in a few minutes. She did that often, preferring to relay messages longer than five words verbally rather than in writing. Cosima sighed and agreed.

The other was the semi-daily update from Nabil back in Djibouti. Like most of the children's texts, it was short and random – a picture of a filthy street cat in the shadow of a trash can that he'd captioned “friienb.” Cosima replied as she usually did, with a picture of her own – her chai latte, framed by a glass sugar shaker and a napkin holder. She added a short and simple message of her own. “Lunch.”

She kept thinking of talking with Qamar about Nooran's nieces and nephews. Djibouti was certainly safer than Yemen, and now that Nooran was cured their life could improve somewhat, but Cosima couldn't let go of Nooran's request – to take the children to Canada with them. She also couldn't forget the role they'd inadvertently played in Cosima's current situation by sending a picture of themselves with the flag of the Muslim Brotherhood in the background. It wasn't their fault, and she would never – could never – ask them about it.

Her phone rang and she answered before even checking the caller. “Hello, this is Cosima,” she said.

“Hi, Cosima,” her mother said, a certain heaviness in her voice.

The dissonance between her expectation of Qamar's chipper accent and the sound of her mother's voice made Cosima reel. “Oh. Hey, Mom. I thought you were out to sea right now?”

“Well, we were.”

“Okay. That doesn't sound good. What happened? You said the boat was having some issues, but – ”

“No, honey, the boat's fine. We got that fixed last month.”

“Okay...”

A garbled, wonky announcement sounded through the phone, like the announcements at airports or train stations, but filtered under water. Sally sighed and waited for it to finish before speaking again. “We're at the hospital right now.”

Cosima froze. “Oh shit. Is it your foot?” She'd been worried about that, about her mother going out to sea so soon after bunion surgery, but Sally said no.

“No, honey, my foot's doing fine. It's Gene.”

“Oh. Is he...”

“It's not his heart this time. He's very keen on everyone knowing that. He did _not_ have another heart attack, and he's been taking his statins regularly.”

“Okay, well that still doesn't really tell me what's wrong with him.”

Sally sighed again. “Well, a couple of days ago, he started noticing blood in his urine. Of course, being Gene, he didn't say anything about it until yesterday, when he couldn't urinate at all.”

Imagining that made Cosima squirm and cross her legs in sympathy. “That sounds awful.”

Beeping in Cosima's ear told her Qamar was trying to get through. Whatever. Qamar could wait. Qamar probably didn't have a urinary blockage. 

Sally went on. “Yes, well, after several hours of that, he agreed we should turn around and head for shore. Fortunately we were only about six hours out from Eureka, so here we are.”

“So, what, Dad went like eight hours without peeing? Holy shit.”

“Closer to twelve or fourteen, I think. He's on a catheter now and they're running some tests.”

“Jesus Christ, poor guy.”

“Yes, well.” Sally gave a few of her deep sighs – the kind that came from somewhere beneath her diaphragm and that Cosima was all too familiar with. 

“Go ahead and say it, Mom.”

She sighed again. “Well, it's just – I know this has been going on longer than he says it has. The doctors were worried about his prostate last year, and sometimes Gene gets this pinched look on his face, you know? This pinched pained look and then he acts like it didn't happen and he's not in any pain, like I'm some kind of an idiot.”

“That... sounds familiar.”

“Oh, so you noticed while we were in Toronto a few months ago? You noticed it too?”

“Uh, no, actually, I didn't. I was thinking of something else.” She was thinking of Delphine, wincing over the phone and over Skype and swearing that nothing was wrong, all the while having a cracked knee cap. “I think you and I have similar tastes in partners,” she told Sally.

Sally laughed. “Don't say that! Delphine's a nice girl.”

“Yeah, nice and stubborn as hell. Anyway. What's next? What's going to happen?”

“We're staying on land for a while. I knew Gene was really hurting when I told him we'd have to, and he didn't even argue.”

Cosima whistled. “Back to Berkeley then?”

“We'll see. I'll keep you posted. Love you.”

Cosima returned the sentiment and hung up. She needed to call Qamar and see what she'd turned up, but that could wait another few minutes. Pulling up her on-going text string with Delphine, Cosima typed, _Would you tell me if you couldn't pee for twelve hours?_ After hitting send, she kicked herself. Over text, she wouldn't see Delphine's face when she read the question, and in regular messenger it was impossible to delete texts. 

The phone call with Qamar lasted four minutes. Samira, the one Leda remaining in Syria, still resided in Khan Shaykhun, but had no cell phone or internet access. All the information Qamar had was word-of-mouth, from the cousin of a friend of Samira's husband. 

“I tell him, you see her next month,” Qamar said

“It'll be a lot closer than that,” Cosima said. “Delphine's scheduled to meet the security team there on May 9.”

“May 9? Okay, I tell them tomorrow. I talk them tomorrow.”

“I mean,” Cosima cautioned, “there's also always the chance the date could change. Just like the others.”

“Yes yes. I know.” Qamar had been with them since they got the Leda List, or close to it. She knew the deal, even if she never quite understood it. 

Off the phone again, Cosima let out a long, slow breath. Different news would have been welcome – that Samira had fled along with her Syrian Leda sisters and Delphine didn't need to go there at all, ever. Or maybe that Samira was in some unique position to hop over the border into Lebanon for a day or two and get treated there. 

Not likely. 

Finishing her drink, Cosima debated a trip to the aquarium or to see Scott at the university, where he was working on nanotechnology. She'd just settled on visiting Scott when Delphine's reply arrived. _Yes, I will tell you if I can't pee for 12 hours but only on one condition._

That was unexpected. _What's that?_

_You have to tell me why the fuck you tried putting a robot worm in your face a few years ago._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A minor edit for those rereading this story and watching for details: The original version had Samira living in Douma, but I've changed that for Reasons.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is some chronological overlap here with the past chapter.

_One year earlier – just after the collapse of Neolution_

In the apartment below the comics shop, Cosima slid onto the bed beside Delphine and tucked the mug of tea into crook of her girlfriend's knee. 

“Thank you,” Delphine said, glancing up from her phone just long enough to put a hand on the mug. 

Cosima nuzzled Delphine's shoulder, pushed Delphine's hair from her neck, and kissed her ear. “So, have Neolution risen from the grave, or what?”

“Hm?”

Cosima snaked a hand between Delphine's arms and tapped her phone. “Whatcha looking at?”

“Just news articles. Police in Argentina have arrested four geneticists in conjunction with Neolution and illegal gene editing.”

“Okay.” Cosima kissed her ear again. “Sounds like the authorities have it all under control then, huh?”

“Perhaps.”

“And there's nothing you can do about it one way or another, huh?”

Unable to continue reading with Cosima's voice in her ear, Delphine dropped her phone to the bed beside her and looked down at her girlfriend. “It's a habit,” she said. “I like to know what's going on, even if I'm not directly involved.”

“You do, I know. You've also only been back for, like, three days.” Seeing Delphine getting ready to correct her, Cosima amended that. “Not counting the two nights you spent here before fucking off back to France. I'm starting to think you just really like being in a hurry to get somewhere else.”

Delphine giggled. “I do not.” 

Cosima snuggled in closer, her tea held to her chest with her left hand as her right curled around Delphine's thigh. Delphine rubbed her cheek on Cosima's head and breathed in deep. Cosima was right. The news could wait. 

“You said you'd tell me,” Cosima said, “what you were doing on the island. Now that Westmoreland and all them are gone, and nobody's gonna come after us, maybe you could, you know. Give me some of the dirt?”

Delphine checked the news precisely to make sure nobody was going to come after them, but generally speaking Cosima was right. They were safe. “Okay. What do you want to know?”

“You know, the usual. Everything.” Cosima's teeth poked through her smile.

“Everything. Well.” Delphine sipped her tea and slipped easily into memories of those long months. “I slept a lot, at first. The nurses visited me, cleaned me, fed me, medicated me, et cetera. And then slowly, bit by bit they made me get up and walk around, and the Messenger came and bothered me.” It was the best verb for what he'd done, since he never answered any of her questions and refused to let her contact anyone.

“Yeah, fuck that guy,” Cosima said. “Did Mud come and do her whole cheerful annoying thing, or was that just for me?”

“I think that was just for you. I didn't meet her for a while.”

“Okay, so they saved your life, nursed you back to health, and then...?”

That part was the easy part to tell, of course. Delphine as the recovering invalid. Passive Delphine. After that it got rather more complicated. “After that, I met Mr. Westmoreland, as he called himself, and he explained a few things. Very few things, actually.” She told Cosima all the details she could remember, about how she'd only just started walking around the camp and by the time she reached the top of the stairs and entered the house she shook like a leaf and almost passed out. Westmoreland turned on his charm for her, as usual, fussing over her health and speaking passable French. He gave her better food than the camp chow tent served and he poured her French wines when she came to the house and listened to all his brilliant ambitions. In other words, he was Aldous Leekie, but English and even more deluded. 

When she told Cosima that, Cosima snorted, and then stiffened. “Wait,” Cosima said. “Did he...? I mean, you slept with Leekie. Did you...?”

Delphine would give up a kidney for both of them to forget that she'd ever slept with Aldous Leekie. Too bad life didn't work that way. At least now the truth could be reassuring for once. “No,” she said. “Absolutely not. He, euh, he touched me a few times, but nothing more than that.”

Cosima tightened her grip on Delphine's thigh. “And if he weren't already dead, I'd cut his balls off just for that. But, you were saying.”

Delphine dropped a kiss on the top of her head. Cosima could be so cute when she was protective. “Was I?” 

“You were.” Cosima pecked her cheek. 

So Delphine told her about her role in Yanis' condition, though by the time Delphine met him the poor man's deterioration was considerable, rendering him unable to speak human language, hairless, and prone to fits of rage and sorrow. Delphine administered “treatments” and monitored his condition off and on, as PT requested. 

Cosima listened, her hand only leaving Delphine's leg to scratch an itch or stroke Delphine's cheek. “What would've happened if you refused?” she asked.

It was a good question, and an easy one to answer, but Delphine still took a deep breath before answering. “It depends at what point I refused. In the beginning, while I was still being medicated for my, euh, injury, he would have killed me. I was past the point where they could just passively let me die, but he would have poisoned me easily. He and the Messenger made that quite clear, and reminded me that everyone else thought I was dead anyway.”

Cosima tightened her grip again, and said nothing.

“After a while, after I'd made myself useful to him and I was no longer taking any medication, he had a little more incentive to keep me around and working for him. I still knew he could kill me, of course. You can't work for Mr. Westmoreland and not know that.” 

She'd laughed a little then, like she was sharing a morbid joke that Cosima was in on, but Cosima's lips tightened. “Yeah,” Cosima said. “I guess not.”

Delphine didn't know then, as she cuddled with her beloved on their bed beneath the Rabbit Hole, that Westmoreland put a gun barrel against Cosima's breast and locked her in a cage. 

“What else did you do for him? It couldn't have just been Yanis.”

“No. It wasn't.” 

The conversation couldn't just stop there. Cosima had a right to know everything Delphine had done to stay in Westmoreland's good graces, to stay in a position where she could see sensitive materials and record them privately. And, unforeseen to anyone at the time, she managed to stay in his graces enough that he hesitated to harm Cosima until Cosima really pushed his buttons and Delphine was off the island.

“Hey.” Cosima reached up and stroked Delphine's cheek with her thumb. 

“Hey.”

“Are you gonna tell me?” Her voice was soft, with the slightest noticeable edge. 

She had to. She'd promised, and there were no more external circumstances to push that promise off on. “Yes. I will tell you. I'll tell you everything, like I said. It's just...” She took a deep breath to calm slow her heart rate and maybe settle some of the acid building in her stomach. 

Cosima twisted to face her more. “It's just what?”

“I'm not very proud of it. Any of it, really.”

“Hm.” Cosima nodded. She must have known, or suspected, that Delphine's work on the island hadn't been exactly benign. It hadn't all been giving check-ups to sick little girls or saving lost clones from hypothermia. Still, Cosima looked up into Delphine's eyes and said, “I still want to hear about it.”

“I, euh, did screenings of certain people living in the camp. I took blood and tissue samples and analyzed them for him, sometimes. It always seemed random, and I'm sure that was purposeful. As soon as I thought I had a hypothesis for what he was looking for, he'd send me in a completely different direction, have me study a patient will dramatically different characteristics. I mean, obviously everything related to longevity, but beyond that, he changed topics so frequently with me that it was hard to pinpoint a specific one.”

“So you just studied them?”

“Mmm, yes and no.” Their faces flitted before her mind's eye – hopeful or frightened or confused. “If they had certain specific traits, specific genes or characteristics that I knew PT was looking for, I sent them up to the house and he studied them there. Studied or medicated them, or...” The sentence trailed off, lost in her own fog of memory. 

Cosima sucked in her lower lip. “Manipulated their genes further, I expect,” she added. “Like he did with Aisha.”

“Exactly like that, yes. And Aisha, well, she...” An unexpected lump formed in Delphine's throat. She couldn't have saved Aisha, unless she'd frightened the girl's mother into running off with her – a tall order once a person was on the island – but still it sat in her conscience. 

“Yeah?” Cosima prodded.

“Aisha was lucky, in a way. She got to stay with her mother most of the time, it sounds like, and her death didn't cause her to suffer too much, or for too long.”

“True, I guess. Does that mean the others you studied were less fortunate?”

“Some were. The first person I sent to him, you know, he wasn't even there for himself. He was there for his granddaughter. All the way up from Jamaica.” Her memory of him would forever be tied with the taste of coconut and ginger candies that he tucked into Delphine's jacket pocket with a wink just before she sent him on his way. “I studied the lengths of his chromosomes and found that his telomeres were quite robust for a man of his age, and PT asked me to send him anyone like that. So I did.”

“Okay. And?”

“And when I saw him again, several weeks later, he was bed-ridden from the effects of whatever PT and the other medical people did to him. He died a few days later, but PT refused to sedate him.”

“Why would PT be giving him anything, though, for his telomeres? That's nothing that needs to be treated, that's – ”

“I have no idea. We could fill volumes with everything I don't know about what he did.”

* * *  
* * *

_Present_

Delphine floundered between waking and sleeping, pulsing waves of pain pushing out from the space below her sternum. She rolled over. If she tried hard enough, maybe she could go back to sleep and the Messenger wouldn't bother her this time.

The pain pushed out against her spine and the muscles in her back, and reality firmed up around her. _Putain_. That wasn't her scar, and she wasn't on the island. The was regular old acid reflux, in her hotel room in Izmir, and no one would come to bother her. No one would even care that she was in pain. No one in this hemisphere, at least.

She stumbled to the bathroom to relieve herself and took some of the prescription acid reducer she'd gotten from the hospital in Kerman. Her phone read 4:55 am. She needed to be up in two hours anyway, so she took her phone off airplane mode and resigned herself to being awake for a while. As expected, a message from Cosima popped up as soon as her phone established network connectivity. This time it was a photo of Helena wrangling a naked, screaming one-year-old, sent a few hours earlier. 

_You sure you want kids?_ Cosima asked.

 _I never said I was sure,_ Delphine replied. It had become a little routine between them – Cosima pointed out some poorly behaved child and asked “You sure you want kids?” And Delphine reminded her every time that she had never made such a claim. She was open to it, not set on it.

Delphine drained the water glass by her bed and refilled it, and Cosima texted again. _Up a little early aren't you?_

 _Unfortunately,_ she replied. Then she sat up in bed, pulled the blanket up around her shoulders, and texted a miserable selfie to Cosima.

_God, you're adorable. Can I call you? How awake are you?_

_More than I want to be. And yes._

A minute later, Cosima's voice came across the ocean and over the Mediterranean to ask Delphine why the hell she was awake, anyway.

“Heartburn,” Delphine said. 

Cosima gave a sympathetic groan over the phone. “You gotta stop eating weird shit from street vendors. You're not Helena, you don't have the digestive system for that.”

In person, Delphine would have pinched her somewhere sensitive. “I do not eat weird shit from street vendors. At least, not very often.” She did eat from street vendors now and then, but only ones that seemed hygienic and reputable, or as an absolute last resort. 

“That sounds suspiciously defensive,” Cosima said. “You know I'll still love you if you've eaten, like, bear testicles or something, right?”

“I have most definitely never eaten bear testicles. I promise.”

Delphine put her phone on speaker and listened as Cosima updated her on Clone Club affairs. For everything Cosima said, Delphine responded with one or two word answers, or a simple hum.

“You should get back to sleep, babe,” Cosima said. 

“Maybe. I like your voice, though.”

“Mm, I like your voice, too, and it sucks giant donkey balls that I am not right next to you, but you should sleep.”

Cosima's particular word choice always made Delphine smile, even when they first met. She'd never met such a brilliant scientist with such delightfully filthy language before. “I want you here, too. I'm not sleeping, though. I can't right now, and I have to be awake soon anyway”

“Tsch. Alright. Well, I did harass the passport people over the phone some more. No news.”

“I doubt that you harassed them.”

“I might've been a little less polite and deferent than I like to be most of the time when talking to customer service reps. I'll atone somehow or another. It should be here by now, that's all.”

“It's only been a month.”

Cosima growled. “ _Only_. And it's been more than a month.”

“It will come, chérie.” 

“Yeah, I know. Seriously, though, Canadian citizenship, once we're finished traveling. You don't have to, but I am going straight up maple leaf as soon as I possibly can.”

“The hockey team will be happy to hear that.”

“I'm sure they will be. Oh, and complete change of topic, but Scotty wants to talk to you.”

The heaviness building behind Delphine's eyes warred with the ongoing pain in the center of her torso, and the best she managed was, “Oh?”

“Yeah, I guess he's got a project at the university where he needs some immunology advice.”

“They don't have an immunologist at the university?”

“I didn't ask. He just said he needed some help and asked if you'd mind a quick convo in the next few days.”

“Hm.” Delphine curled more tightly into herself and thought of no reason not to. “Sure. He has my number, right?”

“I'll give it to him just in case.” When Delphine did not reply, Cosima chuckled softly and said, “Go to sleep, my love. Even if it's just for a little while. I'll give you a call later.”

“Mhm.”

“Okay. Love you.”

Delphine might have said she loved her too, but the called was ended and she couldn't remember saying anything or pushing any buttons. She switched off the light and hoped for the best. 

* * *  
* * *

“I mean, like, nanotech is really the place to be right now. It's up there with gene modification. They're, like, the two big angles for treatment of, like, all the big diseases threatening humanity right now. The diseases that didn't have cures before, I mean, but even for some of them, like, we have a cure, but it's better if we can make sure people don't sick in the first place.”

Delphine watched Scott lean back in his chair on the other side of the Atlantic. Had he always talked with his hands that much, or used the word “like” so frequently? Or was Cosima to blame for those little tics? She nodded. “Absolutely. That's why Dyad and the other organizations were so successful, and why so many otherwise ethical people got involved. Pharmaceuticals can only take us so far.”

“And even then, so many pharmaceuticals are relying more and more on nanotech and genetics. I was just telling Cosima the other day to stop worrying so much about the whole job thing. The market's wide open for someone with her skill set.”

Delphine nodded. “She worries a lot, though.”

“Oh, God.” Scott rolled his eyes. “Tell me about it. At least now I only see her once or twice a week. I would say I feel sorry for you, but I'm pretty sure she worries a lot less when you're around. You're good for her.”

“Hm.” She liked that to be true. She wanted to be someone who lessened Cosima's worries, but she'd rather that effect continue even when she wasn't around. 

“It's funny, though,” Scott went on, “I do kind of miss those old days back in the Hole.” He snorted like it was the first time he'd used that nickname for their basement lab. “You know, fighting evil organizations, uncovering medical and scientific mysteries. Not knowing if we'd get black bagged and disappeared by square-faced goons any minute.” 

“Hm,” Delphine repeated. She leaned back in her hotel room chair and tried not to yawn. Scott had asked for her immunology expertise for a work project, and she happily gave it. She was less excited to participate in the equivalent of war stories about battles she hadn't been in. She'd fought her own battles, almost all of them without Clone Club's support or even knowledge at the time. She'd also spent several hours searching for a Leda clone that half the city claimed to know, but couldn't be found. “I'm sure it was very exciting,” she said. “Cosima talks about those days a lot too.” 

“Yeah.” Scott twirled his pen around. “She tell you about those bots?”

“I think so. The one Sarah had in her cheek?” Aldous apparently had one, too, but she preferred not to think about that one, or the one wiggling out of Dr. Nealon's mouth.

“Yeah, exactly. I keep thinking about those here. Like, Evie Cho and all those people had a good idea – modify a person's genes to avoid certain diseases, using implanted tech. Like, we have projects here at the lab doing the same thing, but way smaller. And I just keep wondering, why did she shape it like a frikkin' grub worm or whatever? Like, how would the marketing for that even work?” He snorted again, and Delphine nodded. Unbidden, the image of Aldous with that worm in his face wiggled back into her head. He'd had that when they slept together. When he kissed her. 

She grabbed her bottle of seltzer water and guzzled half of it. Then her phone knocked the image away with a Cosima-specific _ding_.

The message, devoid of any helpful context, read: _Would you tell me if you couldn't pee for twelve hours?_

Speaking of unpleasant images.

“What's that face for?” Scott asked. “What's going on?”

Delphine shook her head and dropped the phone back on the hotel desk. “I have no idea. Cosima being Cosima.”

“If you say so.”

They sat quietly a moment, Delphine thinking of a polite way to dismiss Scott, and Scott smiling to himself on the screen. 

“You know what I don't miss about those days?” he asked. “Aside from the whole threat of mortal peril thing, I mean?”

“And Cosima's worrying?”

He gave another snort, paired with an eye roll. “Definitely don't miss that, but it is related. Here at UT, every proposal, every idea gets run through the whole gamut of legitimization to make sure it's sound before it ever touches a living creature, right?”

“I would hope so.”

“Down in the Hole while we were fighting Neolution, that was never the case. It couldn't be the case.”

“You had each other, at least, to bounce ideas off of.”

“I mean, kinda.”

“What do you mean?” These, at least, were slightly different war stories than ones Cosima told her.

He shook his head. “It doesn't matter.”

She arched her eyebrows at him.

“I don't want to, like, trash talk your fiancée.”

Sweet considerate Scott. She laughed. “Why, because I have no idea that my beloved Cosima has many flaws, like everyone else does? I worked with her too, remember? I know how she can be sometimes.”

“Yeah. I feel like she listened to you a little bit more, though.”

“Did she? That's not how I always remember it.” She nearly reminded him that Cosima locked _her_ out of the lab, not _him_ , but he went on.

“Well, I bet if you told her not to put a robot worm in her face, she would've listened to you. She sure as hell didn't listen to me.”

Delphine stared at him and tried to place the sentence in her mental context bank. It didn't fit. “I'm sorry?” 

“Those little robot worm things?”

“Yes yes, I'm familiar, we just discussed them. But – ” 

But Cosima didn't have one. She couldn't have one. Delphine thought back over her first night at the Rabbit Hole with Cosima, when they'd talked over the Big Things that happened while they were apart, and Cosima showed her those two little worms in glass vials – one from Aldous, one from Sarah. She'd checked Delphine's face for worms, too, and to their mutual relief found none. But Delphine had never checked Cosima's face. She'd never even asked Cosima if she had one. It hadn't occurred to her that Cosima's sweet beautiful mouth had something awful living in it. 

Had she said something about it and Delphine forgot? It was more than a year ago, after all, and a lot had happened since. 

No. Delphine would have remembered if Cosima had a worm in her face. If she _knew_ that Cosima had a worm in her face, that is.

“Uhh...” Scott's nervous giggle interrupted her train of thought. “Why do I get the feeling Cosima never mentioned this to you?”

“She mentioned the worms, yes, but not...” Delphine channeled her inner Dyad boss. “Scott? Does Cosima has a robot worm in her face?”

“No! No, she does not. We definitely checked, as soon as Sarah found hers. Everybody got checked.”

“Okay. Then what did you mean when you said she did?”

He stammered. “I, uh, I didn't mean that she succeeded. She just tried, and didn't listen when I told her to stop. Felix is the one who got her to stop.”

Felix. The same Felix who said several days ago that at least Cosima wasn't “experimenting on herself anymore.” Experimenting which Cosima claimed not to recognize when Delphine asked her about it. _Very_ interesting. 

“Listen,” Scott said, “maybe I should let you talk to Cosima about that?”

“Yes. I think maybe you should. Thank you, Scott.”

Scott hurried himself off the line, and Delphine paced the length of her room. Images flashed through her mind – Cosima with that cheeky grin as she showed off the bots and how they got them; Nealon's hands wrapped around her throat, a segmented black worm dangling from his bloody lips;

Cosima laughing about the bottle of tequila with the worm at the bottom that she gave to Sarah.

Cosima saying, “I dunno what he's talking about” when Delphine mentioned Felix's relief that she wasn't experimenting on herself. 

And then Cosima sitting on the bed with her in Mexico, saying “I just wish you'd told me” about Jérôme and saying “Everything about you concerns me” even when Delphine hadn't really wanted her to know.

Cosima pushing Delphine to tell her what she did on the island with Westmoreland, and Delphine telling her because it was the right thing to do when you loved someone – you told them things.

Cosima insisting – again and again and again – that Delphine tell her everything. 

Delphine grabbed her phone and stared at Cosima's last message. With deft swoops of her thumb, she typed _Yes, I will tell you if I can't pee for 12 hours but only on one condition._ It bought her a couple of seconds to think of how she wanted to phrase things. 

_What's that?_

That cheeky little snot probably thought Delphine was flirting with her. With a few more thumb swipes over the keypad, Delphine dispelled her of that notion. _You have to tell me why the fuck you tried putting a robot worm in your face a few years ago._

She should have capitalized the word _fuck._ Too late now. 

Her screen read “Typing...” for several seconds. “Go ahead,” Delphine whispered, “say you don't know what I'm talking about.”

“Typing...” disappeared, and a second later the phone rang. 

Delphine answered immediately. “Bonjour, chérie.”

The sounds of cars and wind came through as Cosima spoke, and from the sound of her voice, she was walking quickly. “Okay, first of all, yes I will tell you why I did that.”

The sound of Cosima's voice managed to jerk on Delphine's heart even when she was annoyed. Damn it. “Good.”

“Who told you?”

“That's not important right now.”

“Seriously? I just want to know so I can – ”

“Okay, fine, it was Scott, but that really doesn't matter right now. This conversation is about _you_.”

Delphine heard the tinkle of the comic shop door and the heavy metal Hell-Wizard liked so much. She was being harsh, far harsher than she ought to be. There could be a perfectly normal reason Cosima had never mentioned it, or perhaps Scott exaggerated a little. In person, she could have reached out and held Cosima's hand or face, or somehow shown that she still loved her even when she was pissed. She couldn't do that, though, of course, because she was in Turkey, chasing down Leda clones in a foreign language while Cosima was shopping with her sisters and getting lunch at Tim Horton's with Scott once or twice a week.

“Delphine?”

The music had faded. Cosima was downstairs now. “Yes?” Delphine said. “I'm waiting.”

“To, um, save us both some time, can you tell me what you already know? I'd hate to give you repeat info when you're in such a charming mood already.”

 _Little shit._ Delphine was being more bitchy than absolutely necessary. She could admit that. Maybe she didn't need to know. Maybe she could go on not knowing things about Cosima and then treat every new fact like an interesting surprise even when the facts were terrible, but Cosima had always, _always_ dragged out Delphine's most personal information and experiences, and Delphine had always given them to her. 

“All I know is that you tried putting one of those robot maggot worms in your face, the kind Leekie and Sarah and Nealon had, but you apparently did not succeed. Scott said he tried to stop you and you didn't listen, and that Felix talked you out of it. Does that sound accurate to you?”

Cosima clicked her tongue. “Yeah, that sounds pretty spot on.”

“And I also know this is very first time I've heard anything about it, even though you had plenty of opportunity to share with me earlier.”

Cosima paused. “And that's why you're pissed at me.”

“For now, yes.”

“Okay.” Cosima drew in a deep breath. “For now. And so you wanna know why.”

“Yes. I want to know.”

Cosima took her time answering. “It wasn't really an experiment, actually. I mean, it was, but that was just a cover, kind of.”

“A cover for what?” Again, Delphine's mind filled with the image of Nealon looming over her, but now it superimposed Cosima with a bloody worm between her lips.

“So the worms had this feature that made them explode if they were punctured, right?”

“I didn't know that.” And it did not make her feel any better about this.

“Yeah, that was kind of part of their issue, other than being creepy as fuck and implanted without consent, but whatever. We had videos of them doing that – sending out these tendrils in people's heads and killing them in a couple of seconds. That's why we didn't just remove Sarah's ourselves.”

“Okay. That doesn't really tell me why you wanted one. In fact, it does the opposite.”

“Right.” Cosima's breathing got heavier on the other line, more like sighs than regular breaths. “I knew that something like that might happen if I implanted it in myself. But I knew it also might _not_ happen. It might implant and start doing something really interesting that we could study, and once it was in no one would try to take it out of me.”

“Okay. So it sounds like an experiment. A terrible one, but an experiment. Why did you say it was a cover for something?”

“It's just...” Metal clanked on the other end, and Cosima let out some long breaths. Her voice rose in pitch. “There was nothing else, you know?”

And now Cosima was upset, and Delphine had made her upset, but she was still too annoyed about learning this second hand to feel bad about it. “What do you mean, nothing else?”

“I mean, I was fucking dying already, and there was nothing else that could have saved me in that moment. We didn't have the cure yet. We didn't even have the option of making the cure that we have now. They'd destroyed all of me and Scott's notes. They killed Kendall. We had nothing, literally nothing except those little robot worm things.”

Delphine chewed on her thumbnail. She pictured Cosima in those days, as sick as she was when she got to Revival, but huddled under the Rabbit Hole, coughing up blood, and her anger withered. Of course. And now Cosima was sitting back under the Rabbit Hole where all of this drama had taken place, remembering. 

“I'm sorry. I wish I could have been there for you.”

“Yeah, well.” There was another metal clang – Cosima was playing with lab equipment while she talked again, and Delphine smiled until she went on. “You were kind of dead as far as we were all concerned.”

“Not on purpose.”

“Yeah, no shit, but still.”

Delphine sat on her bed and the weight of her day (her week, her month...) settled into her core. 

“I'm sorry I didn't tell you before,” Cosima said, sounding just as worn out as Delphine felt. 

“Are you?”

Now Cosima laughed. “Is it that obvious?”

“I spend a lot of time listening to you, chérie. You don't sound sorry.”

“Yeah, you got me there. I was hoping you'd never find out, actually. Whatever. Nobody gets everything they want.”

“No.” Delphine put the phone on speaker and flopped onto her back, phone beside her head. “Did you want the thing to kill you? It sounds like you were okay with it, but...” 

Cosima groaned. “I don't know. Maybe? It didn't seem like the worst ending at the time, and I figured I was gonna die soon enough anyways.”

“Hm. When was it that you did this? I know it was when I was on the island, but when, exactly? Do you remember?”

“Why?”

“Just curious. I'm wondering what I was doing at the time.”

“You were monitoring little kids with rare genetic disorders for a batshit crazy old chucklefuck. And eating really shitty food most of the time.”

“Tsch.”

“I don't remember the exact date, no. Sarah could probably dig it up, or Alison. It was the day after Kendall died, whatever date that was.”

Kendall – killed by the head of Brightborn. Two women Delphine never met, but heard a lot about from Cosima in the months after Neolution fell. Cosima spoke often about the night Kendall died. She talked about the frigid wind fighting the fire consuming Kendall's body, the crunch of gravel under car tires and her own boots, and the smell of burning metal and plastic. She said she didn't remember smelling Kendall's body burning, which somehow struck her as strange. She had nightmares about that night, often, and clung to Delphine's body when she woke. Once, after one such nightmare, she'd buried her face in Delphine's armpit and whispered “She was _wrong_ ” again and again until she fell asleep and Delphine's arm went numb.

“That's the night that, euh, they told you I was dead, then?” Delphine asked. “Or the night after.”

“Yeah, it was the night after.”

“You told me a lot about that night.”

“Yeah, well. It's hard to forget.”

“Why not about this, then?”

Cosima coughed. “It's not exactly something I'm proud of, you know?”

“So? I've told you all kinds of things I'm not exactly proud of.” When Cosima didn't reply, Delphine added, “and you pushed me to tell you those things because you wanted to know them. Remember?”

“Yeah, I remember.”

“So what makes this so different? Because it's you and not me?”

Cosima laughed a little. “Kinda? You gonna sue me for a trying to create a double standard in our relationship?”

“I won't sue you, no. But I do know many ways of making you uncomfortable, from a distance an in person.”

“Yup, you sure do.” Cosima groaned again. 

Emotions spent, Delphine lay on her bed and watched her phone as if Cosima herself lay beside her in its place. “Is there anything else you haven't told me?” she asked her.

“I have no idea. Probably.”

“Anything you purposefully haven't told me?”

Cosima chuckled. “No. Pretty sure you're aware of every shitty thing I've ever done at this point. But, I must acknowledge the possibility that I'm forgetting something. It's not intentional, though, if I am.”

“I'll have to take your word for it, then.”

“Yup.”

There was another long pause, and Delphine almost changed the subject, but then Cosima said, “if anyone ever asks you take a bullet for me again, please just say no, okay?”

“I can't promise you that.” In fact, quite the opposite was true. If a bullet ever headed in Cosima's direction, Delphine planned to do everything in her power to stop it, bodily if necessary. 

“Well, at least now you're aware of the consequences on my end. More aware, at least.”

“You conduct terrible experiments on yourself when you think I'm dead, and you take everything out on Scott. Yes, I understand that now.”

“When I think I'm the reason that you're dead, especially.”

“I will keep that in mind.”

“Mkay.”

“By the way,” Delphine asked, “was there a reason you asked about me not peeing for 12 hours?”

“Oh. Yeah. My mom called and said they're on land for the time being. Apparently my dad had a urinary blockage for, like, 12 hours, and he didn't tell her about it until he had no choice.”

Delphine winced in sympathy with him. Suddenly she needed to pee more than she had earlier. “Well, I promise to let you know if I can't pee for any period of time, really.”

“Right back at you. I think he'll be okay. He's just stubborn.”

“Like you.”

“And you. We make a good pair like that.”

“Indeed.” Delphine yawned and stretched on the bed. If Cosima were there she would have snuggled up with her. “By the way,” she asked, “how did Felix talk you out of it?”

“Out of putting the worm in my face?” Cosima gave another soft chuckle. “He called me. I wasn't gonna answer, but Scott shouted at me to pick up my phone, so I did, thinking maybe something huge had happened. First thing Felix did when I picked up was yell at me for doing 'cracked out science' or some shit like that. You know Felix.”

“Hm.”

“Anyway, he told me he'd talked to Krystal, and told me all the things she saw when you got shot, and so maybe, just maybe, you weren't quite as dead as we thought you were.”

“And that changed your mind about putting a robot maggot in your face? Me not being 100% dead?”

“Pretty much, yeah. I am kind of a sucker for you, after all.”

* * *  
* * *

 _Can I ask you more questions about the clones?_ Charlotte texted on Friday, just after Delphine got back from dinner and another day of Leda hunting. At least she'd finally found her, and convinced her to get the treatment tomorrow. 

Delphine blinked at her phone. It was noon in Toronto, so Charlotte should have been in school. She texted back, _When you're out of school, sure._

Charlotte called her in five minutes. “I'm out of school now. There was a half day for parents or whatever.”

“I see.” 

“How many of the clones are sick?” Charlotte asked.

Someone, sometime, needed to explain phone etiquette to Charlotte, but Delphine was not that someone, and now was not the time. She sighed and rolled with it. “Currently, or at any point?” 

“Ever.”

At least it was an easy question. “Twenty that we're aware of, including yourself. That includes those who've died from the disease.”

“Only twenty?”

“Like I said, that we know of. Sometimes we don't know until the disease is quite advanced, like with the woman in Tel Aviv.” Delphine sat in her hotel chair and looked out at the twinkling lights of Izmir. In the background she heard the shouts and laughter of Charlotte's schoolmates. 

“Why only twenty?” Charlotte asked.

“I don't know. Cosima and I have spent a lot of time discussing that, and we still don't know. Probably a combination of factors.”

“Why do you have a spreadsheet and she doesn't?”

Delphine smiled. “Because most of the time we're together, so there's no need to have two. She has full access to it when we're together. You can see it too if you want, once I'm back in Canada.”

Charlotte was quiet for a moment. Delphine pulled up her Leda spreadsheet on her laptop, torn between letting Charlotte steer the entire conversation and steering it herself back in the direction of that French presentation Charlotte had on Monday which everyone in Clone Club was trying to talk her out of. Chances were, Sarah was talking to one of Charlotte's teachers about that as they spoke, given that it was a teacher conference day.

“Have any of the clones been to jail?” Charlotte asked.

Delphine burst out laughing. 

“What? I just – ”

“Charlotte, you live with a clone who's been to jail!”

“Oh. Yeah.” Charlotte's voice went small. “I forgot about that.”

“It's okay. It was before you met her.”

“I know she does drugs sometimes, and Felix too.”

“Yes.”

“And Cosima smokes pot sometimes.”

 _Sometimes_ was being generous, but Delphine let that go, careful to leave out any kind of judgment for any of the clones. “Yes, she does.”

“Do a lot of clones do drugs? Is that, like, a clone thing?”

Delphine blew out a long breath and scrolled down the Notes section of her spreadsheet. “Well, to answer your first question, I think it depends on your definition of _a lot_.”

“That doesn't answer my question at all.”

“Okay. Multiple clones do drugs. Yes? But I have no idea if it's comparable to the rest of the population. A lot of people who aren't clones also do drugs, like Felix or...” she trailed off, unsure of how much Charlotte knew about whom, but mostly thinking of Adele. “Anyway, it's not just a clone thing, no.”

“How many clones do drugs?”

“I don't know.”

Charlotte groaned. “How many of the ones you've treated do drugs?”

“I don't know that, either. I don't ask them.”

“Why not?”

“Because it's not my concern. Some of them tell me, of course. Or we find out through other means. But it doesn't impact the treatment at all, so I never ask.”

“How do you know it doesn't impact the treatment if you don't ask anybody? Like, if they do heroin or something, it might do weird things with the medicine you give them. Mr. Morales said drugs can have weird interactions or whatever with different medicines, so we have to tell the doctors the truth when they ask about smoking or whatever.”

Delphine easily pictured Charlotte in a middle school science or health class. It would be like the time she'd observed Cosima in a seminar class back in Minnesota. “That sounds like good advice,” Delphine agreed, “and he's right about being honest with your doctors.”

“So how do you know?”

Delphine took a deep breath. “Because for the clones who've disclosed their drug use, the treatment has been totally effective.”

“Even with Tony?”

She almost asked Charlotte how she knew about Tony's drug use, but caught herself at the last second. Illicit drug use might not be what Charlotte was getting at here, and Delphine wasn't about to spill anything. “Even with Tony, yes, the treatment is working. We checked in with him back in January and he said everything was fine.”

“How many clones have killed people?”

“I also don't know that. I only know of three who've killed anyone, but I don't ask.”

“Three?”

 _Damn it._ “Yes, three, and that's all I'm going to tell you about that.”

“Helena and who else?”

“Charlotte. I'm not telling you the others.”

Charlotte groaned in frustration. In the quiet that followed, Delphine again thought of turning the topic to Charlotte's presentation, and the possible ramifications of sticking by her truth as a clone. From what Cosima told her, though, she and Sarah already tried that, and Charlotte tuned them out. Now Cosima and Sarah were in the interesting position of wanting to tell a seventh grader _not_ to do her schoolwork and just take the zero.

Which might have been Charlotte's goal all along.

“Do you think there are any other clones my age? Like, that were cloned along with me?”

She sounded so hopeful when she asked, and Delphine bit her lip before answering. “No. I'm afraid not. Marion made it quite clear that you were the only, euh...” How to put it, in the most humane way possible? “You were the only one who made it.”

“What was wrong with the others?”

Delphine imagined for a moment knowing, as a child, that she'd had hundreds of “twins” who died before taking their first breath. It was a tall order for her imagination. “I don't know. I don't know what made you different. I wish I did.”

“She never told me either. She said I didn't need to worry about it and she'd tell me when I was older.”

“I'm sure she meant to.” What other plans Marion Bowles had had in store for Charlotte, though, were best left unknown, for all concerned.

Charlotte was quiet again.

“Speaking of clones,” Delphine began, “I was thinking about that presentation you have, you know, in your French class.”

Charlotte gave a mixture of a groan and a sigh. “I have to go. Sarah's here now. Bye. Thanks.” And she hung up before Delphine could say more.

Delphine plugged her phone back into its wall charger and sat back in front of the Leda spreadsheet. Charlotte wasn't in the spreadsheet. There didn't seem to be any point, since she was cloned separately. And as hard as she tried, Charlotte would not get whatever answers she sought from it.

All of the adult sestras were there – in fact they were the first entries, coded like everyone else though. Cosima was the first, and one of the very few whose row was completely filled in. Delphine scrolled down, seeing how many were in romantic relationships with their monitors, how many wore glasses, had tattoos or piercings, how many were well educated. 

But none of them were Cosima. 

That was in the end perhaps the most fascinating aspect of her clone studies. Every single one of the Ledas, genetically identical to Cosima Niehaus, managed to not be Cosima Niehaus. They were all different, and rarely in only small ways. Despite Delphine's occasional dreams to the contrary, even Sarah couldn't fool Delphine for long. 

If only someone could get that sort of point across to Charlotte.

*

An hour after getting off the phone with Charlotte, Delphine got an email from the clone in Jordan.

_Hello Doctor Delphine Cormier,_

_I am scheduled to meet with you for a medical study on 7th May, but I have accepted a job in Thailand, and I will not be in Amman on 7th May. If you wish, we can meet tomorrow or Saturday. Otherwise I will not be able to participate._

_Thank you very much, and best of luck with your studies._

_Raida_

For a moment, Delphine sighed and shrugged – another patient changing schedules last minute, nothing new, although this did mean cutting Jordan from the trip entirely and arranging a meeting in Thailand later. She pulled up her agenda on her phone to make the change, and froze. After Jordan was Syria. She'd be going there anyway, and she had no set appointment time that needed to be changed. Only the security team would care about changing the dates, and they'd agreed to some flexibility. It would be fine. Just like Iraq.

Just like Iraq.

With the tip of her forefinger, she pulled the red box reading “Syria” a few days closer. 

*

She was settling into bed, checking her alarm and getting ready to put her phone on airplane mode for the night, when another email popped up, from an unfamiliar and indecipherable address. 

_Dear Doctor Cormier,_

_I hope this message finds you all well. I hope that I am not too late in contacting you, but I recently checked the Foundation's website and saw that you were seeking assistance in treating one of our fellow subjects. Please do let me know if I may be of some assistance in this matter. You may reply to this address._

_Very sincerely,_

_Rachel Duncan_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have no idea what the correct spelling for Yanis / Yanus / Janus is. If one of you knows the right way to spell the poor fellow's name, let me know, and I'll change it.


	12. Chapter 12

“How do you feel about open floor plans?”

Delphine flicked her eyes back to Cosima's window on Skype. Her hair rested loosely in a ponytail, and she wore a shapeless gray sweater that matched the weather outside her hotel window. She looked super cozy, super cute, and worringly tired. “Are we still talking about apartments?” she asked.

“Well, a house, in this case,” Cosima said. 

“I don't have an opinion one way or the other, as long as the important rooms are behind doors.”

Cosima nodded and clicked through some more rental postings. The prices on Toronto rentals matched what she remembered from Berkeley – super fucking expensive – but with their combined savings and the stipend they'd get from Rachel's fund, they could manage. 

“Do you enjoy this?” Delphine asked. 

“What?”

“Looking for apartments and houses that you can't rent right now.”

“That _we_ can't rent right now, and actually, we totally could if we wanted to.”

“Oh?”

Cosima went on clicking. “Yeah, I've been thinking. We could sublease it to Felix when he's using his place as a gallery, or to someone else, whatever. I'm sure Scott knows people at the school who need short-term housing, and then we don't have to look around for a place when we get back.”

Delphine did that cute little lip-pout thing she did when deep in thought or highly skeptical. “I suppose...”

“Come on. It's a good idea.” She clicked on the next posting and gaped. “Holy shit, is that a shower stall in the kitchen?”

Delphine's laugh tore Cosima away from the image of immaculate white countertops and furniture paired with a set of frosted glass doors. “That is not convincing me that this is a good idea. I do not want to shower in my kitchen.”

“What if I just spray you down with the hose attachment on the faucet?” Now _that_ was a good idea. Especially if Delphine wore that little white T-shirt and no bra. And no pants. 

“If you spray me with anything in the kitchen, there will be serious consequences.” 

“Aw, fine. Damn it. No wet T-shirt contests. Have it your way.” 

She clicked a few more postings and then closed the site. Nothing excited her enough to really justify spending more than $3,000 a month on a place they wouldn't even see for most of the next twelve months, subleased or not. On the other side of her screen, Delphine looked down again, making some notes and then tapping her lips with her pen. “Did you ever hear back from the Leda in Bruges?”

Cosima shook her head. “Nope. She'll figure out pretty soon that we can't make the appointment, though.”

“Indeed. The rest all got back to us, yes?”

Cosima sighed and put her metaphorical work hat back on. She opened the shared spreadsheet listing Ledas by number, location, and inoculation status, then skimmed the notes for the European Ledas and nodded. “Yup. Everyone whose appointment needed changing has confirmed, with the exception of our sister in Bruges, who I guess doesn't do email anymore.”

“Can you try her again?” Delphine asked.

“Yeah, of course. I'm not sure a third email will do much more than the first two, but yeah. I'll shoot that off once I'm done talking to you.”

They talked shop for the next fifteen minutes. Delphine already had an appointment with one Leda in Ankara, but the second would need to be found personally, like the one in Izmir had. Delphine didn't say so directly, but she was clearly getting tired of tracking people down. 

“Just one lead for Hatice,” she said, and then yawned. “She's listed on the staff site for a medical college, but her name doesn't show on any other searches, and there's no response from her college email.”

“You have a place to start, at least.”

“Assuming she still works there, and the site isn't years out of date.”

“For a medical college? Doesn't seem likely.”

Delphine twitched her eyes. “Perhaps.”

* * *

On Friday, Cosima got lunch with Scott at the Tim Horton's inside the biomedical engineering building at the University of Toronto. When Scott got to the table, he craned his head towards the papers she had out on the sticky table. Twisting his face, he read aloud, _“djuh eh-too-dee duh-pwis kwatra hoo... hoo-ers.”_ Then he grinned. “French lessons, huh?”

She laughed. “Yes, and holy hell dude, I thought _my_ accent was bad. At least I know the final consonant is silent.” Half of the letters seemed to be silent, but that was a rant for a different day.

She joined him in the line to order, and he shook his head. “My accent isn't bad. It's just Canadian. Totally different French over here, you know, what with Quebec and all that.”

“You know, I actually _do_ know that, and I've heard Quebec French, and it sounds nothing like what came out of your mouth just then. Oh, and by the way, thanks for totally narking me out to Delphine about the whole bot thing. Really appreciate that, dude.”

Scott held up his hands, devoid of any sympathy. “Hey, I thought you'd already told her. Don't blame me.”

They drank coffee and ate grilled sandwiches as Scott filled her in on the details of his work with self-assembling nanotechnology. It was refreshing for Cosima to hear someone so excited about their own research again since she was so burned out and distant from her own. 

They were just wrapping up lunch when Helena called.

“Hallo Sestra,” Helena said, wind warbling in the receiver. “Where are you right now, please?”

Cosima stammered. Never in their entire sisterly relationship had Helena called her. They were in the same group texts, but that was about it. “Hey Bub,” she said. “I'm at UT with Scott. Why, what's up?”

“You tee...”

“Oh, uh, University of Toronto.”

“Yes, this I know.” Helena's voice came from farther away and the sound of the wind intensified. She said nothing for a moment, and then asked, “St. George Campus? 27 King's College Circle?”

“Close but not exactly. Um, how 'bout you tell me what's up and I'll give you a more specific address.”

“I will visit you. We will have lunch, perhaps.”

“Oh. Yeah, sure.” Cosima didn't have the heart to tell her that she'd just eaten. “Well, do you like Tim Hortons?”

“Yes, I like very much the Tims.”

“Okay, well, I'm at the Tim Hortons in the Biochemistry building, which is at, um...” She flapped her hand at Scott and asked him for the exact address in a rough whisper. While he tapped at his phone to find it, Cosima kept talking. “So it's on the first floor, right near the main entrance. There's, um, there's a nice park right out front...” Then Scott gave her the address, and she gave it to Helena.

“I will see you soon, sestra,” Helena said.

“Okay, um, are the – ” The call ended before Cosima could ask if Alison or the boys were coming along, or how Helena planned to get here. From what she knew of her sisters' schedules, Sarah was at her own college for the day and Alison usually had school board meetings. 

“What was that about?” Scott asked.

“No fuckin' clue, man.”

Thirty minutes later, Scott and Cosima sat on a bench near the building entrance, soaking in the sun and the balmy temperatures. For the first time since she'd returned to Canada, Cosima's weather was nicer than Delphine's, a few degrees cooler and rainy on the Mediterranean coast. 

They'd heard nothing more from Helena.

“Maybe you should call her back,” Scott suggested. “See what the deal is.”

“I mean, she said see you soon. I dunno.”

Cars drove by along King's College Circle – shiny new BMWs, clunky old Chevys with different colored doors, and Volvos covered in bumper stickers, but not Alison's red minivan or Donnie's black Subaru. Classes ended, spilling swarms of students into the sunshine and the grassy field within King's College Circle. The students owned the street, stepping in front of cars with no concern for the marked crosswalks, and the drivers stopped and let them, accustomed to the throngs. Cosima watched them and wondered when the hell she'd become ten years older than this year's graduating seniors. Hell, there were professors here younger than she was. One of them worked with Scott, and liked to remind everyone how “old” he was since he just turned thirty. 

Before she got too far along that train of thought, the roar of a motorcycle got her attention from the left side of the circle. The roar was joined by a shout, and then another, and when Cosima stood she saw why – the motorcycle's driver did not respect the students' ownership of the road, but pushed the students out of the way like a slow, loud border collie through a herd of sheep on cell phones. No one was getting hurt, it seemed, but the motorcyclist certainly knocked down a few egos before pulling up to the curb in front of Scott and Cosima and removing her helmet.

“Hallo Sestra!” Helena beamed. 

Cosima stared, open-mouthed. “You... how... ?”

“I bought motorcycle,” Helena offered. “Very good price.”

Scott walked around and looked at the motorcycle from all angles like a man who thought he should know about these things, but didn't. “Like, you just bought it? How much was it?”

“Two thousand dollars. Cash.”

Cosima shook her head, clueless as to whether that counted as a “very good price” or not. She opted not to even wonder how Helena had $2,000 in cash lying around. “Where's everybody else? I haven't seen you out by yourself in... well, maybe ever, come to think of it. Who's watching the boys?”

“Babies are with Felix at the house. Sestra Alison is at Bubbles, and Donnie Hendrick is at his office.”

“He's back at work?” Scott asked. “So soon?”

“Yes. Is problem?”

“No. No, just surprised. Thought he might take some bereavement leave or something.” Scott tapped on his phone, glancing back at the motorcycle every few seconds.

A hundred questions swirled in Cosima's head, including what role Felix played in all of this, but one concern tapped on her brain more than the others. “Bub,” she said, “you don't have a driver's license yet. Or has that changed since last weekend?”

Helena scowled. “I do not need license. I never had license before, and I drove motorcycle, no problem.”

Cosima refrained from saying _”Yeah, and you also killed people before, no problem.”_ In the end, it wasn't up to her to control Helena or to ensure that she followed provincial or national laws. Alison would shit a brick when she found out later today, but that was not Cosima's problem either. Cosima's job was to love and support her sister. “A'righty then,” she said. “Where'd you get it?”

The smile returned to Helena's face. “From Mrs. Jessica Mitchell, very angry woman at 1209 Black Oak Drive. It was her husband's motorcycle, but now, husband lives in Winnipeg with new girlfriend, who used to be best friend to Jessica Mitchell.”

“Damn,” Cosima said. What was it with best friends sleeping with each other's husbands on Black Oak Drive? 

“Well,” Scott said, gesturing to his phone, “that explains how you got it for only $2,000. According to this, it's a 2016 model, which normally goes for $5,000 - $8,000. Did she sell you the helmet, too?”

“No. I bought from store. Very nice people there. Very helpful. Perhaps one day I can get job there.”

“Yeah, that could be pretty cool. Um, is the bike still registered to the husband though?” Cosima asked. “It could be really problematic for you if it is.”

“I don't know.”

“You should maybe find that out,” Scott suggested, “sooner rather than later.”

“Why?”

Before Cosima could help Scott explain the basics of property law, her phone rang. She excused herself and stepped away into the shade of the building. “Hey, babe. Everything okay?”

“Change of plans for next weekend,” Delphine said. 

“That doesn't really answer my question. Good change or bad change?”

“Mmm, I'm not excited about it, let me put it that way. The Jordanian clone got a job offer in Bangkok that starts next week. She's leaving in two days.”

Cosima ran that through her mind for a moment. “Okay...”

“She said if I want to run the study with her, it has to happen tomorrow.”

Cosima didn't have a map in front of her and didn't want to futz with the one on her phone, but she had a general idea. “Izmir to Amman is...”

“Is not happening by tomorrow,” Delphine finished for her. “But I asked about any symptoms, and she said she's fine, she saw a gynecologist last week and there's no indication of polyps, although who knows how thorough her doctor was.”

“Well, thorough enough that we know she's not dying. We'll catch her in Bangkok, then. I've always wanted to go to Thailand.”

“Yes, that's what I suggested. She was rather surprised that I wanted to involve her so badly.”

“I'm sure she was. Nice of her to tell you, either way. What kind of job does she have?”

“Communications. That's all I know.”

“Eh, whatever. Nothing exciting. What's that mean for you, then, for the rest of this trip?”

“Well...” Delphine paused. “It means I can go to Syria a little bit earlier.”

Cosima blew out a long breath. She'd known Delphine was going to Syria, but she'd clung to the hope that she'd be going with her. Without a passport in hand, though, there was no way Cosima could have the visa and other documents necessary for Syria by the time Delphine was done in Turkey and Lebanon – eight days from now if everything went to plan. She closed her eyes and centered herself with the sounds of the traffic, the texture of the brick against her bare arm, and the smell of bacon and sugar wafting from Tim Horton's. 

She would keep herself together, for Delphine's sake if nothing else.

Delphine heard her silence and softly said, “I know. But the sooner I go the better, really. We can't save it for the end.”

They had discussed that – saving Syria for the very end of their travels in the hopes that the sociopolitical situation there resolved itself. In the event that something terrible happened to Delphine, they reasoned, all the clones would already be cured, and the mission itself would survive. Cosima really, _really_ hated that line of reasoning. Eventually they'd decided against that whole plan. The Syrian Civil War showed no signs of settling down by the end of the year, and Delphine hoped she could also do some small good there in addition to curing the remaining Leda. Besides, in a week she'd be right next door in Lebanon, and it would be more cost-effective to do those countries together. All logic and reason aside, though, they both just psychologically wanted to get it out of the way.

Cosima pushed on her own forehead. “Yeah. Just get it over with.”

Of the three Syrian Ledas on the list, two were accounted for – one in a refugee camp in Greece, the other in Germany. With no information for the third, they had to do what they did for every other Leda they knew nothing about. They had to go to her last known place of residence and find her, and in this case, they would maintain a strict four-day limit on their search. At least they had verbal confirmation from the translator that the clone was in fact still living there.

“I can email the security people,” Cosima said, “if you let me know dates and times.”

“Okay. I can be at the border by five pm on Saturday, May 5th.”

Cosima scrambled in her bag for a pencil and a piece of scrap paper. Delphine had already planned this all out. She was just calling Cosima to let her know, and Cosima's input wasn't part of this at all. Cosima's stomach twisted, but she grit her teeth and pushed it aside for now. Right now it was business time, not feelings time. She put her phone on speaker, crouched down, and pulled up a map of Lebanon and Syria on her screen. “Okay. You'll be going north... which spot on the border are we talking about, exactly?”

“Where Route 51 in Lebanon crosses. Right near Addabou... euh... Addabousiyah. If I pronounced that correctly.”

“Correctly enough for me. I see it. Okay.” She wrote it down in a notepad, then took a few deep breaths. 

“Cosima...”

“It makes sense. I agree. As much sense as anything else does.”

“You can tell me if it doesn't.”

“It doesn't _not_ make sense. Just... just come back safe, yeah?”

“I'll do my absolute best. And I promise to tell you if anything goes wrong, even if it's my fault.”

Cosima smiled despite herself. “I hope you tell me _especially_ if it's your fault. I need something to hold over your head when you're always better than me.”

“I'll try not to provide you with anything. And, euh, there is something else.”

“Oh?”

“I got an email from Rachel. She says she wants to help.”

* * *  
* * *

When the Sestras and Charlotte met up for lunch on Saturday Alison's face pinched with the same force it had just before she and Cosima blew up at each other. Cosima itched a little to know what happened with the motorcycle, but she and Sarah agreed privately that both the motorcycle and Syria should stay off the table, at least for lunch. 

The host greeted them by pointing his finger at each clone in turn. “Sisters, yeah?”

“Yes,” said Alison and Cosima in turn, while Sarah muttered “yeah, sure.” 

“We're clones, actually,” Charlotte said.

Alison's eye brows sprang up to hide under her bangs, but Sarah just shrugged as the host led them to their table. “I'm starting to get used to her telling everybody that.”

“That's a'right,” Cosima said. “I seem to remember you doing that once, too. A long, long time ago, in clone time.”

They got a big table tucked into an alcove, providing the privacy Alison requested over the phone. “Now,” Alison said, “no serious talk until we've all ordered, okay?”

“Yes, ma'am,” Cosima said. The whole lunch idea was Alison's, and Cosima contented herself in letting Alison control the whole thing. After a few moment's indecision, she ordered the eggplant burger; beside her, Charlotte ordered the trout filet. 

“You like caviar?” Cosima asked her, finger hovering above the trout filet listing in the menu, which included “trout caviar” along with a side of seasonal vegetables.

Charlotte shrugged. “Sometimes.”

It fit everything Sarah said about Charlotte's eating habits, and what Cosima had seen herself – Kira would get mac and cheese or chicken fingers, and Charlotte got oysters on the half shell and sauteed mushrooms. Charlotte probably hadn't even seen mac and cheese or even ketchup until she was ten years old, and she thought peanut butter and jelly sandwiches were disgusting.

Not until the food had arrived and Alison asked the waitress to kindly leave them alone for a while did anyone bring up the real reason all of them were lunching together. It took a moment to breach the topic, during which Alison sat primly upright, Sarah slouched and chewed on a thumbnail, Cosima fiddled with her napkin, and Helena watched Charlotte like a sparrow. Charlotte watched them all in turn. She was now a mere half inch shorter than they were, but she still weighed twenty pounds less than Cosima. Today she wore her hair in a long loose ponytail. She hadn't worn braids in ages. 

“Charlotte,” Alison said, “I think it's time we had a conversation with you. As sisters.”

“I didn't think I counted as one of the sisters,” Charlotte said. 

Alison sputtered, but Helena stepped in. “Sarah also did not think she was a sestra, in the beginning.”

Cosima nodded towards Alison. “Neither did you.”

Sarah hit Helena's arm. “Neither did _you,_ Meathead. You thought you were the bloody Original. None of us were sisters at first.”

“Except for Cosima,” Alison said, inclining her head towards her in return. “Beth and Cosima always felt a certain connection, didn't you?”

There was a distinct note of challenge in that statement, but also truth. Funny how complete the group felt now, even without Beth, who'd brought them all together. Cosima hummed. “Yeah. We sort of did. But I never called her my sister. She was, but we never, like, used that terminology. I didn't really think of us as sisters until after she died.”

Charlotte squirmed in her seat. “But that's kind of what I mean. I'm not one of you guys. It's just genetics that makes me like you. You've all been together for a long time, and you've been a family for a long time, and you're all the same age and everything. I'm not one of the Sestras; you've said that before.”

It wasn't immediately clear who she meant with that last statement until Cosima saw Sarah arching her eyebrows at Alison. “Toldya she heard you,” Sarah said.

At least Alison blushed. “I didn't mean that she wasn't one of us!” she said. “I just meant that she wasn't an adult!”

“That's not what you said,” Charlotte said, before Cosima could remind Alison that the object of conversation was right in front of her.

“Well.” Alison put her hands on the table in front of Charlotte. “I apologize. That conversation last month was about a party for adults only, for the Sestras whose birthdays are all clustered together. I did not mean to imply that you're not part of our family.”

“Besides – ” Helena spoke around a mouthful of pasta until Sarah hit her arm again, and she chewed and swallowed before beginning again. “Besides, is not so bad, to join family late. We all did.”

Charlotte picked at her trout, pushing the caviar around and then looking back up at Helena. “When did you know you were a clone?”

“A clone?” Helena ate some more pasta and thought about it. “I heard the word first at twenty-five. But I did not understand until I met my Sestra.” She smiled and patted Sarah's arm.

“What do you mean?” Charlotte asked.

“First, they called them abominations, poor copies of God.” Helena took another bite and chewed. “But then, I saw they looked like me, and I was afraid. Tomas said I was original, and I was happy to kill them all. Until I met Sarah, and I knew were the same. She showed me that.” From Charlotte's expression, Cosima guessed she still didn't quite get it, but Helena went on. “You are lucky,” Helena told Charlotte. “You have family that loves you. You know who you really are.”

Everyone ate quietly for a moment until Charlotte said, “Not really.”

Sarah swallowed a mouthful of steak. “Whaddya mean _not really_? I thought we talked about this.”

Charlotte rolled her eyes. “I know I'm a clone, okay? Obviously. But that's all I know.” 

Between all of the conversations with Cosima and Delphine about clones and fitting in and everything else, Cosima thought she'd told Charlotte everything she could, but with each conversation, and each slight topic modification, Charlotte seemed more and more frustrated. 

“You're a clone,” Cosima said, “just like all of us, yes. And you're a scholar, and a scientist, and a chess player, and a foodie. And you're our sister, in a way that the other Ledas out in the world aren't. And even all of those things aren't _everything_ that you are. You're this wonderful combination of things that makes you totally unique. You know what I mean?”

“I'm not a foodie.”

“You're eating caviar on purpose,” Sarah pointed out. “If that's not foodie, I don't know what is.”

“Sweetheart.” Alison leaned over towards her. “I think what Cosima's trying to say is that being a clone is just one small part of who we all are. It doesn't define any of us. It shouldn't define you, either.”

Charlotte pouted and put a tiny piece of fish in her mouth. 

“When you talked to Delphine the other day,” Cosima hazarded, “did you learn anything interesting?” She'd already heard Delphine's version of the conversation, but she hadn't yet heard Charlotte's side.

Charlotte bounced her knees. “No.”

“No?” Sarah asked. 

“She's not collecting enough information about them, so there's nothing to learn.”

Helena and Alison cocked their heads in unison. “What do you mean?” Alison asked.

“I mean what I said. There's nothing in common, and if there is we don't know because she's not asking them.” This time Charlotte looked pointedly at Cosima, like it was Cosima's fault Delphine didn't pry into patients' lives. Which, when Cosima really thought about it, might actually be true.

Cosima considered that statement. “What other sorts of commonalities are you interested in?”

Charlotte groaned and rolled her head back, arms slack at her sides. “Why do I have to tell you this? We already talked about it. You told me to talk to Delphine, so I talked to Delphine, and she didn't help either. Why do you keep asking me these questions?”

“We're asking because we want to help you, Sweetheart,” Alison said.

Cosima's phone buzzed and everyone turned to watch her unlock it and check her message. For a brief moment, the attention was off of Charlotte, who shoveled a spoonful of caviar into her mouth.

Alison cleared her throat. “Cosima? I thought we agreed no phones during lunch?”

“Yeah...” Cosima's face drew in on itself as she read the message and tapped out a reply. “Sorry, it's just – ” The phone dinged again, and after reading the second message, she said, “Yeah, sorry about that.” She put the phone away and shook her head. 

Sarah ran her hands through her hair again and leaned her elbows on the table. “Charlotte, listen. Whatever Delphine and Cosima have uncovered about the other clones really isn't important. What matters is – ” Her voice dropped off and she sat up straight just as the restaurant manager walked over, hands over his heart.

“Is everything alright over here? Everything taste okay?”

The sisters stared at him – Alison like she might rip his throat out, Sarah like might throw food at him, and Helena like she might enjoy eating him.

“We asked to be left alone,” Alison said. “For the duration of our meal. Our server seemed to understand that clearly when we checked with her.”

“Ah, well.” The manager chuckled. “Yes, she said that, but I'm just checking that everything's – ”

“Everything will improve immensely once you leave us alone,” Alison snapped, and he backed away. “The entire point,” she muttered, “was to have a quiet place in which to discuss this, without the kids or anyone interrupting. For Pete's sake.”

After the manager shuffled away again, the sisters focused on their meals, reluctant to dip their toes back into clone territory, and Alison's mood stuck. She scolded Helena for picking shrimp out of her pasta with her fingers, for stealing a french fry from Sarah's plate, and for belching without covering her mouth. Helena narrowed her eyes at her, but otherwise gave no replies. Once everyone had finished and agreed they would get dessert elsewhere, Cosima went to the hostess station to pay and tip with the foundation credit card. Their waitress caught her halfway.

“I'm so sorry about that,” she said. “I told him you didn't want to be bothered, but he didn't believe me.”

“No worries.” Cosima smiled. “I think he believes you now.” 

They strolled along the path bordering the lake, in search of somewhere to get dessert of coffee. Charlotte kicked rocks along the path and watch her older sisters – her aunts, in a way – walking just ahead, keeping a slower pace to accommodate Charlotte's. At the edge of Coronation Park, she stopped beside five lime green electric scooters lined up in a row, part of a recent scooter-sharing fleet that Toronto was arguing over. She had her phone in one hand and the handlebars in the other when Sarah swooped in.

“No. Hell no.” Sarah clamped her hands over the handlebars for good measure.

“I didn't even ask you!” Charlotte cried. “I'm just looking!”

Cosima stepped in between them. “Maybe _later_ ,” she told them. “But not right now. We're doing something else right now.”

Charlotte stalked away to the other side of the sidewalk with a toss of her hair, leaving Sarah and Cosima make exasperated faces at each other.

They all walked along in silence while birds and squirrels squawked overhead. Joggers, speed-walkers, and gaggles of teenagers passed them by without a glance. It would have been a beautiful Saturday afternoon if their heads weren't all occupied by clone matters.

Helena fell into step beside Charlotte as they walked, hands clasped behind her back. “You asked me before when I knew that I was a clone,” Helena said.

Charlotte nodded.

“There is another question to ask. You should ask when did the others know?”

“Why? I already know how they found out. Beth emailed Cosima and then – ”

“No. Yes, she did email, but no.” Helena's gaze focused on the tree tops and the birds flitting around over head. When she spoke again, her voice was soft, like she didn't want to disturb them. “Tomas knew before I knew. He knew what I was, but he did not tell me the truth. He used me. He told me I was special, but he only wanted me because I am a clone.” She pointed to the other sisters. “The others, they did not know, and neither did anyone else, except the scientists, like Swan Man. So lives of my sestras were very different from mine.”

Charlotte kicked another rock and watched it skip along the sidewalk ahead of her. “It's better to know, isn't it? Everyone says knowledge is power. Except Alison. She says innocence is bliss, but I don't believe her.” She looked back to check that the others had heard her. Alison adjusted her necklace in the way she only did when she was uncomfortable, and Cosima smirked. Charlotte was a clever kid.

“I am not so sure of this.” Helena turned and put a finger between Charlotte's eyes, stopping her in her tracks. “You are special, Little Sestra, like the rest of us, but more special even. You are the _new_ clone. They will be very interested in you.”

“Who?”

Helena cocked her head and smiled one of her half smiles. “Everyone.”

Cosima's phone dinged again. When she moved to the side of the path to read and reply, Alison gave her some more gentle grief, but Cosima brushed her off. “It's fine, trust me.”

When her phone rang a moment later, and she answered it, Alison stalked off with her hands in the air, until Cosima called over to Charlotte. “Hey kiddo? You wanna talk to Rachel?”

Charlotte and Alison both turned. “Rachel?” Charlotte repeated.

“Yeah. As in Duncan.”

“I know who Rachel is.” Charlotte limped over, but hesitated before taking Cosima's phone. “Why is she calling you?”

Cosima shrugged. “Ask her.”

Charlotte took the phone gingerly between her finger tips. “Hello?” And then, after a moment, “I'm fine. Where are you?”

Cosima listened for a moment, and then herded her adult sisters away to give Charlotte and Rachel some privacy while still keeping an eye on their youngest sister.

“Rachel, eh?” Sarah said. “Wasn't expecting that.”

“Yeah. I guess she reached out to Delphine about the whole Avigail in Tel Aviv situation, which is obviously resolved now, and Delphine told her what was going on with Charlotte.”

“You know,” Alison said, “I forget sometimes that the girls don't have the same animosity towards Rachel that the rest of us do.”

“Yeah, well, she wasn't cruel to them,” Cosima said, “and Charlotte actually knew Rachel at her most vulnerable. That's gotta count for something. Plus, if anybody knows what it's like to grow up knowing that you're a clone, it's Rachel.”

Charlotte stayed on the phone for almost an hour, leaning against a large nubby oak tree for most of the time and picking at the bark now and then. Sarah and Helena sat on a bench several meters away and Cosima stretched out on the grass beside them. Alison went off to a café and bought a variety box of pastries and a bag of cold drinks for everyone, and Charlotte was still on the phone when she got back. At one point, Charlotte pressed her forehead into the side of the tree and rocked side to side. Cosima and Sarah exchanged a glance and wordlessly agreed to let Charlotte go through whatever she was going through with Rachel. If Charlotte needed or wanted her Toronto sestras' help, she knew where to find them. The sestras also agreed not to pump Charlotte for information when she was done, but to let Charlotte say or not say whatever she wanted. Alison took some convincing, though.

“What if Rachel wants her to come live with her wherever she is?” Alison asked. “For all we know she's starting up some new cloning organization out in whatever country she's in.”

“Well, we can say no to that,” Cosima said. “I think we can agree Charlotte should stay where she is, at least for now. And I kinda doubt Rachel's got that going on right now.”

When the phone call finished, Charlotte took her time limping back to the others. Her eyes were pink and swollen, but her face was dry, and Cosima smiled up at her when she handed back the phone. 

“Would you like dessert?” Alison offered, holding out the half-empty box of pastries. 

Charlotte nodded and took a cheese danish from the box, then a bottle of water from the bag. “Thanks,” she murmured, and perched on the end of the bench beside Helena. Cosima reached over and patted Charlotte's good knee, and Helena rubbed her back. Charlotte nibbled on the danish and stared into space.

For the rest of the day, Charlotte said nothing beyond single word answers even when people spoke to her. She made no eye contact, and Sarah said she closed herself in her bedroom when they got home, and stayed there for most of Sunday. On Monday, the last day of April, she went off to school and her French presentation without a word, and Sarah and Cosima held their breaths. 

Sarah called Cosima at nine. “Wanna get lunch? I could use some company while I wait for this French teacher to set my ass on fire. Or hear about how all her classmates have kicked up the bullying a notch. Either way, this isn't gonna be pretty.”

They went to a fast-casual sandwich joint, but only Cosima ate anything. Sarah tapped her meatball sub with her fork and bounced her knees in time with the pop rock on the restaurant's speakers. “Shoulda just let her take the zero. I got loads of zeros in school, you know. Charlotte can afford to get one, one time. Shit. What if they believe her?”

“It'll be fine,” Cosima assured them both. “If they ask, just say she has active imagination.”

“I'm not convinced that she does, actually. Kira's the creative one. Charlotte's little Miss Facts.”

Cosima considered that. “Well, facts might be what she has to hang on to, you know? She's been through a lot, she's still going through a lot, she has to hang on to something.”

Sarah grunted. “Maybe. Funny, I always tried to escape reality when things got rough. Charlotte just hangs on with her damn teeth.”

“Hey, different people cope differently.”

“Guess so. Just feels like she's gonna tear me down with her.”

When the school let out, Sarah drove up to the school to collect Charlotte, preferring to be on hand to deal with any backlash that might trickle down from the French teacher. Kira would be home a bit later since she now had kids' theater rehearsal on Monday afternoons. Cosima waited at the house, played with the cats, and called Delphine in Ankara to distract herself.

“She went through with it?” Delphine asked.

“I guess. I don't know what else she would've done.”

“Well,” Delphine said, “at least her grammar ought to be strong.”

Cosima smiled. “Yeah. Way better than mine at this point, probably. I keep thinking I have these fucking verb tenses down, and then I get them wrong.” 

“Who says you get them wrong?”

“These online grammar sites.” 

“Ah,” Delphine. “Well, maybe those sites aren't reputable. Just ask me next time. That's what Charlotte's been doing.”

Great. Now Delphine compared Cosima to her youngest sister, and Charlotte came out on top. “Yeah, well, Charlotte apparently also doesn't care what you or anyone else thinks of her. I, on the other hand, care very much what you think of me, and my ability to retain grammatical rules. Enough about me, though. Did you find Hatice?”

“Mm, I have a lead. Her colleague at the medical college gave me a different email address, so I emailed that a few hours ago. We'll see.”

When Sarah and Charlotte came back, Cosima scanned both of their faces and postures for signs of distress, but to her surprise, Sarah was almost smiling. Charlotte was not, but seemed no worse off than she had over the weekend. She flopped onto the sofa beside Cosima, scooped up the calico cat, and buried her face into its fur before it could wriggle away.

“How'd it go?” Cosima asked. “What'd your teacher think?”

Charlotte shrugged and let the cat down on the sofa beside her. “She said my grammar was okay, but I need to work on my pronoun placements and adjective gender agreement.”

Cosima struggled with grammatical gender in both Spanish and French, and nodded in sympathy. She always wanted to remind those languages that gender was a social construct and they should all just lighten up about whether it was _la_ mano or _el_ mano, or _un_ café or _une_ café. She was smart enough not to share this view with Delphine. Yet. She made no promises not to complain _just a little_ once they got to France.

“Her teacher said she did great, actually,” Sarah said, fishing around in her purse. “Said she was very brave to share her story in front of her classmates, and gave us a CD copy of the presentation to watch whenever we want.”

“Which means never,” Charlotte said.

Sarah pulled out the CD encased in a white paper sleeve and considered it. “I mean, I don't speak a word of French, but it's a nice thought.”

*

With Charlotte's permission, Cosima downloaded the presentation onto her laptop and sent it to Delphine. While Charlotte read a book in the backyard, Cosima, Delphine, and Sarah watched the presentation together, syncing the recording as much as possible over their Skype connection. Sarah downed half a bottle of beer before Cosima even hit play.

At the start of the teacher's video, Charlotte stood at the front of her classroom with half of the students seated on either side of the room like parted middle school Red Sea, all eyes on her. Cosima's stomach twisted in sympathy.

And then Charlotte started talking, in the halting style of anyone forcing themselves through a new language. It surprised Cosima, though, since Charlotte had actually studied French for two years now. To Cosima and Delphine's great relief, though, Charlotte did not begin with any variation of “Je suis clonée.”

Instead, Charlotte said simply, “J'habite à Toronto.” _I live in Toronto_. About as bland an opening as she could possibly get. 

As Charlotte went on, though, her face buried in the two white notecards the teacher allowed, the blandness fell away. 

“Ma mère s'appelle Rachel, mais elle est seulement ma mère biologique.” 

“Merde,” Delphine whispered.

Charlotte continued. “Elle ne voulait pas moi, donc les médicins me donne à une autre femme.”

Cosima made a little noise of sympathy. The last clause was true, but not necessarily the first. Rachel had always wanted children of her own. And still, Charlotte had not mentioned cloning. 

“What's she saying?” Sarah asked.

Delphine and Cosima paused their videos, and Cosima let Delphine do the translating. “She said her mother is Rachel, but only as a biological mother, and that Rachel didn't want her, so the doctors gave Charlotte to another woman.”

Sarah took another swig of her beer. “Huh.”

They resumed the video, and Charlotte went on to describe Marion Bowles, in brief, and their house in Forest Hill South, one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in Toronto. She said Marion was a single mother who worked a lot and rarely saw Charlotte, and now she was dead. After Marion, Charlotte said she went to live with a great aunt on an island in northern Nunavut, but that great aunt was now also dead, so Charlotte lived with her older sister now.

After the five minute presentation, the teacher asked the class if they had any questions for Charlotte. A shaggy-haired boy raised his hand.

“Où est ta père?” he asked.

Delphine giggled as the teacher gently corrected the boy's grammar, and Charlotte shook her head. 

“Je n'ai pas un père. Je n'ai pas besoin d'un père.”

*

After the video ended and Delphine had translated everything, Cosima and Sarah stared at each other – Sarah wide-eyed and Cosima smiling. 

“She told pretty close to the truth,” Delphine said.

“What the fuck?” Sarah said, checking that the object of their conversation still sat outside. “Why the hell did she put up such a bloody fuss about being a clone and then drop it last minute?”

“Maybe Rachel talked her out of it,” Cosima suggested. 

Sarah pushed a hand through her hair and gripped the roots. “How? We've been trying for weeks. What the hell could Rachel say that – ”

Kira burst through the front door before anyone could speculate much, a pair of her theater friends right behind her. In the fuss of removing dirty shoes, dropping backpacks in appropriate places, and making introductions, Delphine yawned and slumped in the laptop's video window.

“You should get to bed,” Cosima told her. “Thanks for your help over here, though, seriously. And if Rachel contacts you again.... I dunno.”

“I'll send her the presentation. I think she'd like that.”

Cosima paused to let the three fourth-graders crash through the kitchen and wave manically at Delphine. Once the kids ransacked the refrigerator and gone out to bother Charlotte, Cosima said, “Let's check with Charlotte first, make sure she's okay with Rachel seeing it. Does Rachel even speak French?”

Delphine chuckled. “Oui. But her German is better, I believe.”

“Okay. I feel like there's a story behind how you know that, but okay.”

“Nothing exciting.” Delphine yawned again and stretched her arms up over her head. “I just worked directly under her for a while, and then when I took over I had access to all her files.”

“So you know all her dirty secrets?”

Delphine shrugged. “As much as you do.”

“Fair enough. Well, either way, whatever she told Charlotte seems to have helped.”

* * *

Charlotte consented to sending the presentation to Rachel, but otherwise kept her mouth shut about it, even when Cosima took her out on Friday afternoon to try those scooters she'd seen on Saturday. As they zipped along through the park, Cosima asked about the whole “not mentioning cloning” thing.

“I just didn't feel like it,” Charlotte said. “Wanna bet I can beat you to that sign up there?”

Before Cosima could call her out on the subject change or caution against speeding around pedestrians, Charlotte was off, leaving Cosima tapping at her handlebar buttons and trying to keep up. 

They took a break near a row of food trucks by the lake. “I want one of these for my birthday,” Charlotte said. “But maybe in black instead of lime green. I could get to the library in five minutes on one of these, I think, but I have to check the actual distance to know for sure.”

“Could be a good idea,” Cosima said. She bought them ice cream and found a picnic table to sit at. “You could ride it to school, maybe, too. We'd get you a lock for it, or get you the kind that folds up so it can stay in your locker.”

“The electric ones don't fold up.”

“I betcha some of them do.” Cosima also bet that they cost a decent amount of money, but if it meant Charlotte could actually get herself around town like a normal kid, Cosima would make that happen. She watched her youngest sister eat her mint chocolate chip cone without pressing her on any topics until Charlotte was almost finished. “Do you think it was helpful for you to talk to Rachel the other day?”

Charlotte shrugged. “Kind of.”

“Did you enjoy it?”

“Kind of.”

“Would you wanna talk with her again sometime?”

Another shrug.

“What if she bought you a folding electric scooter?”

Now at least Charlotte smiled at her around the tiny remains of her ice cream cone. “Maybe.”

“Okay, well, that's something, at least.” Cosima wiped her hands on the cheap paper napkin and stood up. “Come on. I told Sarah you'd be back home by seven.”

*

When Cosima got back to the Rabbit Hole after dropping Charlotte off, Hell-Wizard pointed to a small stack behind the cash register. “Mail for you.”

Cosima picked it up and flipped through it. 

An ad for a new local gym promising to be her “newest fitness addiction.” 

A coupon booklet for HVAC and roofing services. 

A request for money to save the Yellowstone wolves. 

And a padded envelope from the US Passport and Immigration Services. 

“Fucking finally,” she said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Any grammar errors present in Charlotte's presentation are intentional in that I intentionally have not had that checked by a native French speaker, and they are the same errors I make all the time. Still, feel free to correct them in the comments! Ditto on any spelling errors.
> 
> Here's a translation of the French from Charlotte's presentation (that's not already translated in the text):  
> Je suis clonais = I am cloned / I have been cloned  
> Où est ta père? = Where is your father? (The boy used the feminine "ta" for "your" though, when it should be the masculine "ton" because the word for father is masculine. Hence Delphine's giggle.)  
> Je n'ai pas un père. Je n'ai pas besoin d'un père. = I don't have a father. I don't need a father.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter discusses abortion. If for any reason you're not okay with that, you might want to skip to the end.

The text came through as Delphine sat in the Istanbul airport for the fourth time, drinking a “mango tango” smoothie and reviewing some key Arabic phrases on her phone before flying over to Lebanon for a few days. 

_Hello dear Dr. Cormier,_ the message read, _I am Samira in Hama, Syria. My uncle he says you come see me next week yes? Please can you see also the girls in Hama? The girls need too much help and you are doctor you can help them._

Relief washed over Delphine. After weeks of third or fourth-hand messages via their translator, she finally had positive direct contact with the Syrian Leda, and clear incentives to keep her on board and cooperative. Hell, Samira just texted _her_ instead of the other way around. Delphine slurped up some more smoothie and replied.

_Hello Samira! Yes, of course I can help your mother and the children, but I will not stay very long. Please tell me what they need. I will try to bring supplies with me._

After a moment's thought, she added, _I can't promise to bring everything, but I can bring some things._ After all, “too much help” could mean almost anything.

Samira replied just as the airline began boarding first-class passengers, and Delphine shuffled into her place in line. 

_Yes thank you dear Dr. Cormier,_ Samira said, _One boy too he have the asthma he need medicine for lungs. Many girl they have too much pain she need medicine for pain. Need for the blood too. One girl she shake too much. One girl she hit head now she no see. One girl a boy he rape her and now she have big problem._

_Also, internet and cell phone very bad._

“Merde...” Delphine's eyes linger on the second-to-last sentence, about the girl with “big problem,” which, again, could mean a number of things. 

_I will do my best,_ she replied. _Can you tell me more?_

*

By the time she landed in Beirut, more than 100 items crowded the shopping list Delphine compiled during her flight. Most items fell into the “standard medical care” category, like alcohol swabs, bandages, and pain killers like ibuprofen or paracetamol. Delphine could find those with limited language ability in almost any city, no problem. Problems came with the items on the list that Delphine circled in red – items she had not purchased in quite some time, and might not even be legal in Lebanon. She had research to do, on top of shopping and planning, and also treating the Beiruti Leda on Saturday morning. 

If Cosima were there, of course, she could have helped. She could have knocked out most of the shopping list while Delphine treated her Lebanese sister and did medical research. But Cosima wasn't there. Cosima was back in Canada, spending quality time with her family. 

Delphine swallowed her bitterness and stepped through the airport doors into the blinding Beirut sun. She waved her arm for a taxi.

Soon. Cosima would get her passport soon. She had to. 

_In Beirut_ , Delphine texted Cosima from the taxi to her hotel. _A lot to do. Chat tonight? 9 pm my time?_

 _Yes! Of course._ And then a series of kissy and smiley faces. 

Then Delphine turned her attention back to the day's other text chain, where, over a series of messages, Samira clarified much of her earlier text. She said that “the girls” needed menstrual products, and one suffered from epilepsy, though Samira couldn't say which kind. “The boy” needed a bronchodilator for his asthma, and Samira sent a picture of his old, used up medication to help Delphine find a replacement. 

Straight-forward enough, to Delphine's mind, but when it came to the girl who'd been raped, Samira equivocated. Delphine asked if she was hurt – Samira did not answer. Delphine asked if she was pregnant – Samira said no, but even through text and however many miles separating them, that smelled like a lie. 

By the time Delphine reached her hotel, she knew that this girl in need of help was fourteen years old, weighed 43 kilograms, and was, in Samira's words, “killing herself.” Samira also reminded Delphine several times that she was using her uncle's cell phone, which probably explained some things. 

_You come you help, yes?_ Samira asked as Delphine rolled her suitcase into the hotel. _The girl, she need bad help. I can no help. No one in Hama help._

 _Yes,_ Delphine replied. _I will come, and I will help, but I need to know what is wrong with her first._

The hotel clerk recommended a pharmacy nearby, and Delphine picked up alcohol swabs, gloves, and menstrual products, as well as all the general-use medication she could carry, focusing on analgesics. Then she showed the clerk the scrips she'd written out for the asthma medication and her best guesses for what Samira's fourteen-year-old might need.

The clerk scowled at the list. “You need all this?”

“Yes.” 

When he hesitated, she pulled out the copy of her medical license and held it up to his face, probably an inch or so closer than absolutely necessary, and he leaned back.

“Ah,” he said. “One moment, please.”

After totaling up her purchases and helping her arrange them in reusable bags she'd brought, he watched her struggle through the crowded store displays and through the narrow doorway. 

_Make sure Alison's sitting down when she sees this month's credit card bill,_ she told Cosima, even though she knew Cosima handled more of the finances now. _It won't be pretty._

The grocery store near her hotel had lines more than twenty people deep when Delphine arrived. She paused just inside the doors, a bit to the side to allow the steady streams of new customers to enter, and whispered “putain.” She checked her watch – 3:04 pm, no reason for this many shoppers. According to Google Maps, though, the next sizable grocery store was at least 30 minutes away and also experiencing higher than usual volumes, so she might as well stay here. She took one of the remaining carts from the corral and headed into the rest of the store. 

People in the Middle East, Delphine knew from experience, showed greater hospitality and genuine friendliness than Westerners did, but even with her months of experience here, shopping at this took her aback. The store was packed and the shelves ransacked, but rather than the angry, tired faces she would see in such a case in Toronto, these people chatted and laughed together. People smiled at Delphine as she loaded up her cart with shelf-stable food and beverages, including powdered and evaporated milks, plus a case of bottled water, soap, and wet wipes. She nodded to acknowledge their smiles but did not smile back. When she got to the check-out line, it wrapped around into the produce section, where a shattered papaya made everyone's shoes stick to the linoleum. 

“Putain,” she said again.

The women in front of her heard her, and if they didn't understand the word, they got the sentiment. The older one smiled at her, showing a gold cap on her front tooth. “You are visit?” she asked.

“Euh, yes.” 

“Kareem Ramadan!” both women said, almost in unison, and then laughed at each other.

Ramadan. _Putain...._ She smiled and thanked them, then returned the greeting and tried not to grimace.

She opened the calendar on her phone. Sure enough, in tiny letters at the bottom of today's square – _Ramadan begins (evening)._ She'd read up on it while preparing for this leg of their trip, and then forgotten it. A month of daytime fasting, prayer, and service to the poor would not impact her normally, but she had enough to deal already.

*

On Saturday morning, she checked in again with Samira, asking one last time for specifics about her young charge. Finally, as she wrapped up with the Leda in Beirut, Samira relied.

 _She have problem in uterus. Big problem, need woman doctor._

Which could actually mean a number of different issues, only one of which Delphine had any means to help with. Endometriosis, tumors, or polyps required scans and pelvic exams, none of which Delphine had the means to perform in Syria, even with the cooperation of the International Aid Agency. 

Which itself was far from certain. 

She sighed and treated herself to a stroll along Paris Avenue and an expensive lunch overlooking the Mediterranean. Despite arriving at the restaurant in the middle of the usual lunch rush, only four other diners, all Westerners, sat at the restaurant's tables. The waiter served her immediately, and her food came quickly, and her seat gave her a beautiful view of the boardwalk and the sea. Kareem Ramadan, indeed.

She planned to Skype with Cosima around 3:00 or 4:00, after Cosima woke up and before Delphine joined her security team, but Cosima texted her at 1:37, just as Delphine entered her hotel room after lunch. 

_Skype now?_ Cosima asked.

Delphine flipped open her laptop and clicked the green button by Cosima's name. “Is there a reason you're awake this early?” she asked as soon as Cosima's face appeared. “It's not even 7:00 yet over there.”

Cosima's yawn and full-body stretch occupied several seconds before she continued. “Yeah, I set an alarm so I could talk to you before you left. It's super important.”

Delphine smiled. “I'm glad you did, but you could have slept in an hour or two. I'm not leaving until 5:00.”

Cosima's grimaced. “I know. Actually, I was _this_ fucking close to flying out and seeing you this morning.”

“You were? With what, then?”

With a big toothy grin, Cosima held up a dark blue booklet with the United States eagle under the word PASSPORT. “I was, and with this.”

It took a second for Delphine to comprehend the meaning, and then she gasped. “You got it? It...You... you finally got it?” 

“Yup. Last night. I wanted to call you, or, like, buy a plane ticket to Beirut and surprise you, but...” She shrugged. “Logistics, you know.”

She imagined Cosima jumping into her bed that morning and tickling her awake with her dreadlocks. “I wish you had.”

Cosima sighed. “Yeah, me too, but even with the shortest, earliest flight I found, I'd still be in the air right now. I would've landed at 4 pm your time, which means I wouldn't get off the plane until, like, 4:45 or whatever, and I'd only be walking out of customs by, like, 5:30.”

“And I'm meeting the security team at 5.”

“Exactly.”

To think, she had been that close to having breakfast with Cosima again. “Putain.”

“Pretty much.”

With her big news out of the way, Cosima stretched again, then rubbed her face and pouted at Delphine with big sad eyes. 

“Just one more country apart, then,” Delphine told her. “And don't even think about trying to come to Syria with me.”

Cosima's laugh fell flat. “Yeah, no. I'm not that kind of stupid. Although, if you wanted to push all that back another month or two until I can get another visa lined up, I would not be upset.”

Delphine looked over at the piles of purchases destined for Samira and her family, including the bag of prescription medicine for Samira's “children.” She shook her head. “I know you wouldn't be upset, but a lot of other people would be.”

Cosima rapped her fingers on her keyboard, sending little tappity-tap sounds through the speaker. “I know we've already paid for the security team, but I'm sure we can eat the cost if you want to postpone everything.”

“And if I don't want to postpone everything?”

It should have come out neutral, perhaps even teasing, but instead the words fell from Delphine's mouth as a confrontation, with the stress on the _don't_ rather than the _want_. Delphine closed her eyes and sat with the not-so-hypothetical question hanging in the air. When she opened her eyes again, Cosima was watching her with wide eyes, her lower lip tucked in between her teeth. Just out of her camera's range, she fidgeted with a pen so the end of it bounced in and out of view. She blinked and shook her head. “I mean, if you don't want to, it's up to you. The whole thing's up to you. You know that. You're the one doing all the work.”

“I'm sorry.” Delphine put her forehead in her hands. “I didn't mean it like that. I want your opinion. I always do.”

Cosima's voice softened. “I know. You don't have to take it, though.” 

“I just want to get this over with.”

“Yeah, me too. Only on the condition that “getting it over with” means you stay safe, though. Nothing else really matters to me.”

Delphine opted not to ask if “nothing else” included the health of Cosima's international sisters. Best not to get into that, ever. “Samira's family is depending on me to bring these things, though, so I can't wait. Anyway, I will be fine. I promise you I will be fine.”

Cosima groaned. “God, please don't tell me that. That jinxes it.”

She smiled at Cosima's superstition. “Okay. I will not be fine. I will have a head cold the whole time, and I will develop a horrible ingrown toenail halfway through the trip. I'll probably even have heartburn. Does that make it okay?”

“Maybe. No. No, nothing makes it okay.”

“Two days,” Delphine said. “Three days at the most. From all my texts with Samira, she seems eager to participate.” Really, Samira seemed eager for Delphine to treat _everyone else_ , but that was beside the point.

“Yeah, finally.”

“It's not her fault we couldn't catch her earlier. She doesn't have her own phone.”

“I know.”

“Anyway, I could be in Germany as early as Tuesday afternoon. That's assuming one day travel to Hama, one day to treat Samira and the rest of her family, one day back to Beirut, and then traveling to Germany the same day. I'm not at all sure how likely that is, though. One way or another, I hope we can still go to France at the end of the month. Fingers crossed.”

“Fingers permanently crossed. Tuesday, May 8, for Germany. Okay.” Cosima wrote it down next to her laptop. “Does that mean you have an actual appointment with a German Leda close to then, or you just picked Germany for reasons?”

“I have an appointment. Well, a flexible appointment, in Tübingen.”

“Flexible is good. Great, even. Everyone should be flexible.”

“Elise said I could treat her basically whenever was convenient for me. She's unemployed at the moment and apparently her son damaged someone else's house, so she really needs the participation money to help pay for that. I got the feeling she would participate twice if she could.”

“Works for me.” Then Cosima giggled. “Good thing she doesn't know she's a clone, then, or she might try actually doing it twice. You know how duplicitous we are.”

“Some of you certainly are, and she might. Anyway, I told her I'd give her at least two days notice before meeting with her, just to be on the safe side.”

“Sounds good. I'll see you in Germany, then.”

The sentence slipped off Cosima's tongue as though they hadn't spent the past month and a half pining over each other from across the Atlantic Ocean. Like they were arranging to meet for dinner after an appointment, like they always had before. Delphine grinned and couldn't stop.

“I'll see you next week, mon amour. Count on it.”

*

Despite the conversation with Cosima and all the shopping for supplies for Samira's family, her trip to Syria still felt years away. 

Or it had, until Delphine got to her rented storage locker near the Beirut airport, where she slid her half empty suitcase, followed by all the vials of inoculate minus the ones meant for Samira. On the chance that Delphine or the things she carried didn't make it safely back from Syria, at least the cure and all of her notes would be safe. That was assuming, of course, that nothing happened to Beirut or the area surrounding its airport, but the security team didn't think that very likely. The company that owned the storage locker had Delphine's written consent for Cosima, Scott, or Art to collect her belongings in the event that Delphine could not. She would've given permission for most of Clone Club, but the permission form only had three blanks. At least the job would not necessarily _have_ to fall on Cosima in such an event. 

She allowed herself a moment to imagine Cosima opening the door in her place, Cosima retrieving the vials and the suitcase. Cosima's hand would linger on the little French flag ribbons that she'd tied onto every zipper on Delphine's suitcase in January, back when the suitcase was clean and new. 

Her alarm buzzed. She had thirty minutes to meet the security team. 

“À bientôt,” she whispered to her belongings, and locked the metal door. 

*

After an hour sitting behind the handful of other vehicles trying to cross the Syrian border, Delphine and her hired security team spent another hour _standing_ outside their vehicles, hands visible at all times, trying not to cough when a sudden breeze kicked up clouds of dust. Syrian security force soldiers inspected the three Range Rovers in the security convoy, opening every door and hatch that could open and pouring over all the documents provided by the security team and Delphine herself. Every portable container was opened and emptied – by the security team or by Delphine, at indirect gun point. Fortunately, the bottled water, packaged food, and pills stayed in their containers after being waved over by handheld metal detector. 

She couldn't blame them.

“Only other people trying to get in are fighters,” explained Fowler, the Canadian member of her security team. “Some Daesh, but also for all the other groups tearing the country up. I'd say you don't look like a fighter, but honestly, they got all kinds of people sneaking in just to blow shit up. Kids, mostly, but really they get everyone. The other day a different team caught this middle-aged white lady from New Zealand trying to join Daesh. No damn sense.”

“Hm,” was all Delphine had to say for that.

The delay at the border meant they crossed into Syria around sunset. Not willing to travel at night, the team arranged to stay at a company-approved guest house in Akkari, a town of no more than 2,000 people. With a smile, the guest house owner offered them all a bowl of dates to break their fast, wished them Kareem Ramadan, and then offered them a small spread for _iftar_ , the sunset holiday meal. 

At least she had her own room, with Fowler and another guard posted just outside. Two other members of the team guarded the exterior, while the remaining two team members slept. The security team made it clear that no one would come in, but also that Delphine was not allowed to leave the room until they said she could. “Any violation of our rules or orders voids your contract with the company,” Fowler explained back in Beirut. 

“No problem,” she said. 

Before she settled into bed in Akkari, she used the team's emergency phone to call Cosima. The sound of chatting and laughter drifted through from Cosima's end, and Delphine smiled. Cosima was with her family, not stewing in her own anxiety underneath the Rabbit Hole. “We crossed safely,” Delphine said without any preamble, “but I can't talk long.”

“I know, I know. It's okay. I'm just glad you're safe. Call again tomorrow?”

“Of course. Je t'aime.”

“I love you too. Just...”

“I will see you in a few days. Don't worry too much about me.”

“That is not even remotely possible.”

* * *

The International Aid clinic in Hama overflowed with patients when Delphine arrived Sunday morning. A few patients wore bandages around various body parts, but many more showed no external injuries. 

“Refugees,” Fowler told her. “Probably from up north.”

Dr. Eaton, the friend of Delphine's friend from her MSF days, hustled Delphine into his closet-sized office. “I can't give you any space like I thought I could,” he told her. “You see how it is here.”

“Of course! I understand completely.”

“Unless you wanna join the team, and even then, I'd say a third of the patients who come in, we can't treat because we're in triage mode all the time.”

“I understand,” she repeated, “and I can't join your team, unfortunately.” 

“Sorry. I thought we could help you out more.”

Delphine thanked him for his time and dropped off a fraction of the medical supplies she'd brought in from Beirut. Whatever she still had left over after treating Samira and her family would end up here as well. 

“What now, doctor?” Fowler asked as they left the building, careful not to step on anyone. “Change of plans?”

“Not really.” She'd treated plenty of patients outside of clinical settings, after all. “We find Samira, and then we take it from there.”

They found Samira an hour later in a two-story building that was missing an entire western wall. Despite the damage, the eastern half of the building stood intact, and a little boy with an eyepatch pointed them to Samira's classroom, where she was in the process of teaching twenty or so children how to multiply. Samira saw Delphine, but did not invite her in, so Delphine watched from the doorway with Fowler and Ghada, one of her two female guards.

“Not quite the kind of Sunday school I had as a kid,” Fowler whispered, “but why not, eh?”

“It keeps them busy,” Ghada pointed out. “And why not have school on Sunday? We're not Christians.”

Samira's pupils wore identical blue uniforms and sat at clean wooden desks within clean, intact concrete walls and open windows that let in the warm spring breeze. A few boys in the back of classroom whispered to each other and giggled, and Samira scolded them before asking one to come and solve a problem on the chalkboard. It could have been a classroom anywhere else in the world, except one of the boys had only one arm, and a third of the school had no roof. 

The children swarmed Samira after the lesson, until they saw Delphine and her guards in the doorway. Samira spoke to the children in soothing tones, and then beckoned to Delphine. “Come in.”

Delphine stepped in slowly, eyes flicking between Samira and her students. Then she crouched down a few feet away and smiled wide at the children. “Marhabaan,” she said. 

She couldn't say much else, of course, but they recognized a friendly Westerner with goodies when they saw one. When enough of their eyes registered interest, Delphine opened the front zipper on her bag and removed the pouch of pocket-sized toys she'd purchased in Beirut. She'd considered candy, but decided against it both for health and practicality reasons. Candy tended to melt in the sun. Besides, it was Ramadan, and although children did not fast, Delphine didn't know the rules on giving out consumables during the holiday, so she played it safe.

Samira watched unsmiling as the children selected bouncy balls, tiny slinkies, or plastic animals, and she made sure they said thank you in English. Once the children dispersed, Samira did not introduce herself to Delphine or the guards, but simply asked, “You had a safe journey?” 

“Yes,” Delphine said. “Thank you.”

“Very good. We talk now, yes? At my home.”

Delphine hoisted her bag back onto her shoulder and followed Samira out into the sunny street. Samira set a brisk pace, her shoulders hunched as though perpetually bracing against a strong wind. They passed buildings destroyed by the siege and attack on Hama six years ago, and walked along the lush green river bank, past the 600-year-old water wheels that once drew tourists and history buffs into the city. Here and there soldiers from the Syrian Armed Forces squinted at them until Delphine's security team showed them their official pass, and the soldiers went back to swatting at midges and watching people bathing in the river.

“My uncle,” Samira said as she walked, “he say you want to come. He say you do medical test. But why? Why me? Why here?”

It was one of those cases when honesty, or the closest Delphine could get, was the best policy. “We found that you have certain genetic characteristics,” she explained, “which make you certain to develop a particular deadly disease. It's very rare, and most doctors don't recognize it, but we have the treatment here with us.”

Halfway through the explanation, Samira's eyes took on the utterly lost expression Delphine knew so well, so Delphine turned to Ghada, who grew up in Syria, and asked her to translate. 

Samira frowned as she listened to the translation, and then she lit a cigarette, first checking furtively to see who might see her. She took deep drags on it while they walked, hiding it whenever someone came close enough to see it as though the puff of smoke didn't already give her away. Only when they arrived outside her apartment complex did she face Delphine again. “How did you find this? This disease in me?”

“We have records from before the war. But we just got them last year, so we didn't know before.”

Samira nodded. “My brother, he died. He want to leave, but he had, ehm, a disease. Stomach disease. He died in a desert, before two years. And other people, like him, die now. Why you don't cure them?”

God, Delphine had hoped no one would ask those kinds of questions. No good answer existed, ever. “I can't cure everyone,” she said. “But I can cure you. And I can help your family, here, now.”

Samira did not exactly nod, but she jerked her head towards the apartment building entrance, stubbed out the cigarette, and said, “good.” Then she paused, pointed to the remains of her cigarette sitting in the building's public ashtray, and held her finger to her lips. “Shh.”

At Samira's apartment, they found five girls in their mid teens clustered around the dining room table, and an older woman sitting in armchair by the window. The girls stared at Delphine and shrank back at the sight of her armed guards, but the older woman gestured to them with her chin and said something to Samira. 

“She wants us to get out,” Ghada told Delphine, “but that's not a good idea.”

Eventually, after several minutes of arguing, the older woman stood and left the room in a huff. Samira growled to no one in particular, and then waved her hand at the group of girls, dismissing four of them and insisting that the fifth stay. Samira introduced her as Razan. Then Samira turned to Fowler and asked him a question in Arabic.

Ghada gave him a second to answer for himself, and then replied clearly enough for Delphine to understand, “He doesn't speak Arabic.” Then she pointed to Delphine and said, “neither does she.”

The following transaction took place in both English and Arabic, but excluded Fowler entirely. Samira, Ghada, and Razan spoke in Arabic, and then Ghada wrote the translations into English for Delphine's eyes only. When Fowler tried to read them, Ghada blocked his view. “For women only,” she told him. “You don't need to know.”

As Delphine suspected, Razan was indeed pregnant, by soldier probably eight to ten years her senior. Judging by the look on Samira's face, the young man was lucky that Razan never learned his full name. 

_When did it happen?_ Delphine wrote. 

_Six weeks ago,_ came the reply. 

_Are you sure you're pregnant?_ Delphine asked. She'd hate to give the poor girl misoprostol if she'd just missed her period.

Samira answered for her, since Razan started crying. _She took a test. I had a box from some time ago._

 _How long ago?_

Samira made a face when Ghada translated that. _I don't know. One year, maybe two._

Delphine would have asked how she got a box of pregnancy tests in a country where she couldn't get her own abortifacient medication, but the conversation was convoluted enough already. She just nodded and accepted both Samira and Razan's conviction of Razan's pregnancy. Through Ghada, she determined that Razan had no allergies or other medical concerns, that she began menstruating at age ten and could usually predict it, and she was indeed willing to do _anything_ to end this pregnancy, even at risk to her own life.

 _Don't do that,_ Delphine urged, and Ghada's tone in translating the message matched Delphine's. Ghada reached out and held Razan's hand as she cried again, and whatever she said afterwards made Samira nod. 

Delphine looked away to give the Syrian women a moment, and Fowler caught her eye. On his own piece of paper, he wrote the word “abortion” with a crooked question mark. She didn't answer him, but looked back to her patients and her translator. Out of the corner of her eye, she said Fowler tear the note up into countless little pieces and sprinkle it into the waste basket.

She took the little bottle of misoprostol from her bag and handed it to Samira. _She'll bleed quite heavily for a few days,_ Delphine wrote, _and she'll have bad cramps. I'll give her some pain medicine for that. If anyone asks, she can say she's taking it for stomach ulcers._

Still teary-eyed, Razan placed the first dose under her tongue as Samira set the kitchen timer for thirty seconds. While they all waited and made sure Razan didn't swallow too soon, Delphine pulled a large bottle of ibuprofen from her bag and set it on the table in front of Razan. She also gave her four unopened bottles of water, lightening her bag considerably. “For you,” she said. “You'll need them.”

Only when Razan finished with her first dose of misoprostol did Samira relax, invite Delphine and her guards to sit, and ask about this deadly disease treatment Delphine came all this way to administer.

* * *

“It's a beautiful city,” Delphine told Cosima that night, during their five minute check-in call. “I wish you were here.”

“Me fucking too,” Cosima replied. 

“I'll inoculate Samira tomorrow morning, and we should be on our way back the morning after that.”

“What? Why? Why not head back tomorrow? And why couldn't you treat her today?”

Delphine sighed. “Long story short, Samira had things to do tonight, and she thinks the shot will make her sick for a day or two. Apparently that happened a few years ago when she got a flu shot, and... anyway. Tomorrow she has no plans, so she wants to do it then.”

“Okay, weird. Um. So, why can't you leave as soon as you treat her tomorrow?”

“The security team thinks it best to wait another day. That's all I know.”

Cosima groaned. “Ugh. Okay. I hate that, but we hired them for a reason, so probably do what they say, yeah?” 

“Yes, I think so. I'll see you soon, though. Not much longer now. And I love you.”

“I love you too. You know, I can't even focus on anything while you're there. Like, not even a little bit. Everyone keeps trying to distract me, but it's not working. Kira's been super sweet, actually. I think she can feel me freaking out. I'm at their place right now, doing craft projects and discovering just how much I suck at street hockey.”

Delphine's grin hurt her cheeks. “Please get one of them to take pictures of you. And try to take care of yourself, at least? I'd like you to be healthy when I see you in a few days.”

Cosima promised she would try, but made no promises.

While Cosima festered in anxiety back in Toronto, Delphine experienced the reverse, and only partly because she had no reason to worry about Cosima the way Cosima worried about her. Rather, the greatest unexpected blessing of Delphine's time in Syria was the complete lack of internet access. She called Cosima for a few minutes twice a day on the security team's emergency phone – first thing in the morning and just before falling asleep, but otherwise she had no contact with the outside world. The security team did, of course. They got constant updates from their colleagues around the country and beyond, but they shared none of that with Delphine unless it impacted their plans, like their requested one day travel delay. The whole situation reminded her of Revival, but without the personality cult or genetic manipulations. Not to mention the upgrade in climate and company.

As for distractions, Delphine never needed them. Between inoculating Samira, checking on Razan, and treating almost every child in the neighborhood for some ailment or another, Delphine never had a moment to herself. Even while she was actively treating someone, someone else wanted her attention. Through an interpreter, the children wanted to know exactly what she was doing and why, or why she didn't speak Arabic, or if she'd ever been to America. When she told them she had, a few of them spazzed out or latched on to her like they'd pick up some special American vibes from her shirt. 

“It's not that special,” she told them, while Ghada chuckled at the sight. “It's just a country.” _And my favorite American in the world kind of hates it right now..._

Some of the children showed her pictures they drew, including pictures of her. One of Razan's sisters played songs on the piano and sang for her. The younger children invited Delphine to little events with their well-worn dolls and stuffed animals, and the little boy with asthma showed her animal bones he'd dug up outside, again, and again, and again. 

“You showed me that one already,” Delphine told him that afternoon while she examined a young woman who'd hit her head a few days earlier. The young woman giggled despite the blood pooling in her forehead and swelling her left shut. 

“He like you,” she said, and translated for the little boy. He looked at the tiny skull in his hand like it lied to him.

They all would have _adored_ Cosima. 

The young men in the neighborhood flirted with Delphine, but unlike men elsewhere, they always took the hint when she didn't flirt back. 

“You're lucky it's Ramadan,” Ghada said after Delphine turned down an invitation for a romantic walk along the river. “Last month he would follow you until you said yes, but now they are all on their best behavior.”

“Is that what it is? I thought perhaps it was all of you scaring them into good behavior. Or maybe they're just too hungry from not eating all day. Either way, I'm not complaining.” 

Delphine and the security team ate and drank water at regular intervals throughout the day, out of sight of the locals who fasted from sunset to sundown. Even the Muslim members of her security team ate, explaining that they gave extra money to charity to compensate for not fasting. The rations kept hunger at bay, but that was about all Delphine could say about them. After their first night in Hama, bathing became a more pressing issue anyway, when the local plumbing went out. 

At night, when the adults broke their fast, Delphine joined Samira and her seven-member family for _iftar_ , crowded around a table meant for four people. The girls, Delphine learned, were neighbors and former pupils of Samira's, either orphaned or left behind by the civil war. 

“My mother, she adopt me,” Samira said, “so now, I adopt them.”

Delphine thought of the only other non-Canadian Leda whose “children” she'd met. Nooran had taken the children in her care and fled Yemen to live in a tiny apartment in Djibouti. In contrast, Samira stayed in her beautiful war-torn town, but as Delphine prepared to leave at 6:00 am on Tuesday, she approached Delphine with a similar request. 

“Maybe,” Samira said, smoking her second cigarette of the day, “maybe the children, you know? Go to Lebanon with you?”

Samira's eyes shone with unshed tears, and Delphine bit her lip. “I don't think so, no. I'm sorry.” The security team, in fact, made her sign multiple forms promising not to bring anyone or anything back from Syria. Lebanese border guards would search their vehicles in a few hours, and if Delphine wanted to re-enter that country and see her own loved ones again, Samira's family could not come with. 

Samira nodded, expecting that answer. “Okay. Yes, I know. I am sorry too.”

“Maybe one day?” Delphine said. “We can sponsor you, to join us in Canada, but it will take some time, and it will probably only be for you.” Sarah was willing to sponsor Samira as a family member, since Cosima already had an application in the works for Nooran and her children. Sponsoring five girls who weren't officially adopted, though, would be far too tricky to make any promises.

Samira shook her head. “Me, no. I stay. The children – the girls, I mean, they should go. But me no.” She looked back over her neighborhood in the steaming morning air. “Everyone else, they go. Understand? Doctors, nurses, many many teachers. Me? No. I stay.”

Delphine nodded. _Ledas._

* * *

Crossing back into Lebanon took three times as long as going into Syria had, most of it spent sitting still. In other such situations, Delphine might have napped in the car, but she couldn't, since the team wanted her alert at all times. Nor could she get out and stretch her legs, even right next to the vehicle. 

“Nobody's gonna shoot you,” Fowler told her , “but let's just make sure you don't need to put that kidnapping and ransom insurance to use, okay?”

She also craved a cigarette for the first time in well over a year. Nothing killed time quite like smoking did, and the past three Ledas she'd seen outside of a clinic all smoked in front of her. Samira smoked like the world ended tomorrow. Delphine didn't need all that. She just missed the taste, and the feel of a cigarette between her fingers. 

Fowler had cigarettes. None of the guards smoked on duty, but she saw the box poking out from one of the side pockets on his pants. Delphine's contract with the company forbade her from using any mind-altering substances, including but not limited to alcohol and marijuana, but it placed no such ban on clients smoking tobacco. The company knew its clientele, after all, and everyone else Delphine knew with kidnapping insurance also smoked like chimneys. 

Cosima's voice rang in her ear, though. “I'm so glad you quit,” Cosima told her, again and again. “So I can keep you around longer.” And before Delphine could point out Cosima's own smoking habits, Cosima would rattle off a list of the benefits marijuana conferred on its users, and challenge Delphine to name a single benefit she'd ever gotten from tobacco. 

“It made me less hungry,” Delphine would say. That never impressed Cosima, of course, who'd never used her own sex appeal to get herself into anything on purpose. 

She and Cosima would probably have that conversation a couple times a year for the rest of their lives, and that thought made Delphine smile. So she abstained from smoking on this trip, like all the other trips, and filled in the pages of her field notebook with silly faces and lists of everything she needed to do, ever, for the rest of her life. 

Maybe this was why Cosima spent so much time looking at apartments. She was bored out of her skull, too.

Finally, after another thorough search of their persons and belongings, the Lebanese border guards let them pass, and the convoy drove south back towards Beirut. The guards relaxed a bit, and Delphine turned her cell phone back on to tap out a quick message to Cosima.

_Back in Lebanon. No problems. Beirut ETA 2 pm._

Cosima's response popped up two seconds later. _Halle-fucking-luia._

Delphine giggled, not caring if the guards in the front of the vehicle heard her. 

_Is that even the right spelling?_ Cosima asked. _Who fucking cares._

 _Not me,_ Delphine replied. 

She spent the next two hours buried in emails, text messages, her calendar app, and travel websites. Before committing to anything online, she politely got her guards' attention. “Is there any reason we might not be at the drop off by 2:00?” she asked.

“No reason I know of,” Fowler said. 

Ghada shook her head as well and said they were actually running a little early. “We might be there closer to 1:45.”

With that assurance, Delphine entered her credit card information into Expedia and confirmed purchase of a single one-way ticket to Frankfurt. 

Then she texted Cosima again.

_I'll see you tonight, mon amour._

* * *

Nearly four hours later, after a brief but stress-inducing traffic jam along Route 51 in central Beirut, and hurriedly retrieving her belongings from the storage locker, Delphine checked in to Beirut-Rafic Hariri International Airport. She collapsed in a creaky plastic chair in sight of her gate with ten minutes to spare. At least at the airport most of the restaurants served food and drinks despite the holiday, but Delphine didn't have time for that. She took the remaining “emergency” granola bar from her backpack and promptly dropped it because her hands shook so much. 

As she ate the chewy block of raisins, almonds, and puffed rice, she stared at her ticket. Three fat black letters stared back at her: FRA. For a moment, between the hunger, the stress, and the rushing of the past few hours, she forgot where she was. For a moment, she was at the Toronto airport, with a not-so-secretive Dyad lackey keeping watch on her a few seats away. She closed her eyes and relived the whole trip in her mind – landing at Frankfurt; being whisked away by Mehmet, Topside's Turkish-born driver; standing among the black-and-white suited Topside executives and pretending her heart wasn't broken. 

An Arabic announcement, followed by an English one, snapped her back to reality. Business class passengers lined up to board. 

Delphine shook her head and bit the tip of her own tongue hard enough to snap her brain into gear. Not much else of her old Topside routine remained, but the mild self-punishment lingered. And Mehmet, at least, survived Topside's liquidation. According to his family in back in Bursa, he'd relocated to Bavaria last year and taken up cheese making. 

Still, her heart didn't believe it. Her heart insisted that she'd be meeting with either Marion Bowles or some other Topside crony in several hours, after barely enough time to eat an airport sandwich or wash her face. 

The announcement of economy class boarding got her on her feet, and she bit her tongue again. She was in Lebanon. She'd woken up that morning in Syria, and she would fall asleep that night beside Cosima in a hotel that Cosima described as “cozy and super awesome.” 

Still, she fidgeted and her heart raced. She hated Frankfurt. 

*

Naturally, as a consequence of last second ticket buying, Delphine got the middle seat, between a man with a head cold on her right and an adorable but active toddler sitting with its mother to her left. Lufthansa also provided a television screen on the back of every seat. None of the movies or shows available interested her, so Delphine had three hours to contemplate her own reflection – unwashed hair, dark circles, and all. 

Landing at Frankfurt, she followed the familiar route out, but her feet slowed after she passed the baggage carousels and neared the _Ausgang / Zoll_ sign. 

No. Wait. She paused to get her bearings, the feeling that she was forgetting something tapping at the front of her brain.

Baggage. That was it – she had baggage to claim. Slowly, she turned and regarded the baggage carousels behind her as embarrassment pressed down on her. She had the cure in the bag draped over her shoulder, so that was safe, but she'd nearly walked out of the airport without any of her clothes and poor Cosima would have had to schlep all over the city to buy new ones for her again, like she had in Mexico...

 _Tsh._ Delphine gave herself a little slap and joined the crowd watching the suitcases from Beirut roll by. If she left without her suitcase, they'd just call the airline and pick it up later. No big deal. Still, traveling through three countries in thirteen hours had clearly degraded her cognitive abilities. Thank God she didn't have to treat anyone tonight.

She grabbed her suitcase and trudged back towards _Ausgang / Zoll_.

In another thirty minutes she passed through customs and the usual commentary on how full her passport was, and then she let the building vomit her out into the common area with everyone else. 

And there at the front of the waiting crowd, wearing that burgundy top Delphine liked so much, stood Cosima, grinning like maniac. 

This time neither of them cared who saw. The second Delphine put her bags down, Cosima launched herself into Delphine's arms and wrapped her legs around Delphine's waist just a second too soon, and they both nearly toppled over. Fortunately, Delphine's legs were already positioned to carry and balance her luggage, so they required only minimal shifting to accommodate this much more welcome load. She gripped the soft fabric of Cosima's shirt and squeezed her tight, needing the firm warmth of Cosima's body, the wet heat of her mouth. Cosima's mouth erased every stress of her day, her week, her entire past six weeks. 

Delphine's lower back, on the other hand, screamed like giant forks were ripping the muscles apart. She released Cosima as gently as possible, keeping their mouths together until Cosima's feet touched the floor. 

“I missed you,” she whispered against Cosima's mouth.

“Nggh...” Cosima buried her face in Delphine's neck and dug her fingers into the trapezius muscles along both of Delphine's shoulders, releasing little pieces of tension. Delphine hooked her thumbs in the belt loops just above Cosima's ass and let the top of her body go slack.

“You smell different,” Cosima said. 

“Oh.” There was that. Delphine pulled away an inch or so. “Sorry. I haven't showered in three days.” 

Cosima closed the new little gap between them, sniffing the different parts of Delphine she could reach without bending much. “It's not that bad, actually. Just a little like cleaning supplies, sweat, and, hang on, stale cigarette smoke?”

“Still?” Delphine bent to sniff herself. “Sorry. It's not mine, anyway. Your Syrian sister is a bit of a chain smoker, and I wore this shirt most of the time I was there.”

“Well.” Cosima kissed her again, parting her lips and running her tongue around the inside her of her teeth before catching Delphine's lower lip between her own. “Your mouth still tastes good. And I'm assuming there's, uh, nowhere you need to be tonight?”

Delphine kept her fingers hooked around Cosima's belt loops. “Wherever you are. That is where I need to be.”

Cosima grinned and clicked the side of her tongue against her teeth. “We can arrange that. Come on. Let's get you a shower. I can help if you want.” 

Delphine swayed on her feet, suddenly more aware of the glances some of the other travelers sent their way, but lacking the energy to give a shit. They could look all they wanted; she was still going home with Cosima. 

Cosima took her bags and her suitcase and led Delphine out of the airport and into the balmy evening air. When Delphine paused, confused about the lack of dreary cold rain that always greeted her in Frankfurt, Cosima tugged her hand and gave her an encouraging smile. She got them a cab that smelled like Samira's apartment and settled Delphine in the back seat.

“Holy shit, babe,” Cosima said, kissing the back of Delphine's hand as the driver headed out. “You are exhausted. What time were you up this morning?”

“Five o'clock.”

Cosima whistled. “No naps on the plane or anything, either?”

“Non.” 

The ride to the hotel and the trip from taxi to hotel room passed in a blur, with Cosima's hand tucked in hers the entire way. At the hotel, Cosima let into a shiny blue elevator and then into a spacious room with a king-sized bed, a small table with chairs, and a mini fridge. “Wanna see the best part?” Cosima asked, and opened the bathroom door without waiting for a response. The bathroom was the size of Delphine's entire hotel room in Beirut. A two-person jacuzzi occupied one corner, a shower stall with glass doors filled another. The toilet had a bidet attached. 

“It's nice,” Delphine managed. 

“You okay?” Cosima asked.

“Yes. Fine. Euh...” She looked down at Cosima's face, the face she could pick out from a crowd of Ledas even without makeup on and with her hair covered, and kissed her again, more gently this time. After all those weeks of imagining what she would do with Cosima when they reunited, Delphine lacked the energy to do any of them. 

Cosima's hands lingered on her waist. “Can I get you anything? There's water and snacks in the fridge, and the room service is pretty good here.”

“Just stay with me?”

“As long as I possibly can. Let's get you that shower now, huh?”

Cosima took her bags and arranged them in the room while Delphine relieved herself and made use of the bidet. When she was ready, Cosima joined her in the bathroom, stripped, and turned on the shower for her. 

“I might've already had a shower just before I picked you up, but I'll hang out in here with you. Make sure you don't fall over, you know.”

Delphine pulled off the rest of her own clothes and smiled at the love of her life, naked and grinning in the shower stall doorway. “That's very considerate of you.”

The water warmed her almost instantly, and at her request, Cosima turned one of the dials so the water punched her skin with force approaching that of a hale storm. She pouted at the realization that her toiletries were all still packed, but Cosima held her in place and produced a clear plastic bag holding new bottles of Delphine's usual body wash, face soap, and shampoo. 

“I figured you might want some more.”

Delphine held her face in both hands and kissed her again. In the morning, her brain would formulate an appropriate way to thank her, but for now kissing would have to do.

When she couldn't remember how long she'd been leaning against the glass door, or how she'd gotten there, she stepped out of the shower and let Cosima turn off the water. She let Cosima wrap her in a fluffy white towel and guide her to the edge of the jacuzzi, where she pushed Delphine's damp hair behind her ears and looked down into her eyes. “I think we need to get you into bed, beautiful, ASAP. You are barely awake as it is.” 

Delphine shook her head. “Is there another towel? I have to dry my hair, or...” She waved a hand around to indicate the sort of disaster that would occur if she slept on it wet. 

“Gotcha covered, babe. Just sit still.” The moment Cosima stepped away again, Delphine tilted to the left and thumped against the wall. A moment later, Cosima turned back around, holding a sleek black hair dryer that she'd gotten from somewhere. 

“Oh,” Delphine said.

“Just stay where you are,” Cosima said. “Let me take care of you, okay? You've been working your ass off for too damn long without any help.”

Delphine nodded and closed her eyes as the warm air stroked her skin and Cosima's fingers worked their way through her hair. She brushed her lips against Cosima's nautilus tattoo when it passed by. Then Cosima sat beside her and directed her to lean the other direction, against Cosima's body, as she dried the other half of Delphine's head. 

“I don't think I'm up for anything tonight,” she mumbled once Cosima turned off the hair dryer. “I'm sorry, chérie.”

Cosima chuckled. “Nope, you are definitely not, and you do _not_ need to apologize. I just want to take care of you. You can sleep in tomorrow, too. In fact, I think that you should. I'll sort breakfast out for us.”

“With you?”

“Fuck yeah with me. Now come on. We need to get you into bed. Your shorts still on top of your suitcase?”

“Euh...” Normally they would be, but she'd changed the arrangement when she packed for Hama and stored the suitcase in the locker. “I don't know. I think so?”

“Can I get them for you?”

“Sure.” 

She sat on the edge of the bed and watched Cosima unzip and dig through her suitcase, setting aside daytime clothes until she got Delphine's little gray sleeping shorts. When she handed them to Delphine, Cosima's smile was almost shy. “I always wanna check, you know.”

“I know.” She kissed her again, lingering on her mouth and falling into Cosima's little sigh until Cosima pulled away again. 

“More of that tomorrow, yeah? Let's get you in bed.”

They crawled into bed together, and Cosima switched off the lights as Delphine wrapped herself around her. “Je t'aime,” she whispered into the soft skin of Cosima's neck. 

Cosima let out a long breath and pressed her lips into Delphine's hair. “I love you so fucking much.” Just as Delphine drifted off, Cosima added, “Let's never spend that much time apart ever fucking again.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also, I have ZERO interest in discussing the pros or cons of abortion in general, though if you have a WELL-INFORMED comment about the medical specifics of the abortion mentioned here, I'm happy to hear it. 
> 
> I will delete any comments that shame people for getting or providing abortion services. We support people here, not shame them.


End file.
